The Shade of Grey
by Conna Stevenson
Summary: In a small New Hampshire town, a nameless gargoyle child wanders into the home of a young college student... and a strange dance of fate begins.
1. A Small Grey Creature

_"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." --__Christina Baldwin_

_-----------------_

In the weak, foggy moonlight filtering through cracks in the roof, a small grey creature crouched over a pile of gravel and wondered what to do.

He was small for his age, small and built like a willow sapling and not a muscle worth remark; it was the one in his head, Leader had often snarled, that he used too much.

_"If you used your claws half as much as your fool brain," _Leader would admonish, _"you'd have meat in your belly and you wouldn't be such a burden! Just look at Elder, would you? You want her to starve?"_

Little One, as he'd been tagged, growled now, remembering the oft-repeated scoldings. Elder had been the only one with a kind word for him, when she was herself. Sister and Big Brother largely ignored him, but then, Big Brother seemed to lack the wit to bestir himself for anything but food, and Sister was too busy haranguing Leader for some affront, real or imagined.

Little One sighed, prodding the chunky, gritty remains of Elder with a tentative claw. Ironically, she'd been the last to leave him. First, Big Brother had snapped his neck going over a steep cliff after an equally dim deer. Weeks later, Sister went out alone after an argument with Leader and stumbled across some human hunters camping in the woods.

She had returned with gunshot wounds, half bled-out, weeping, and fell into Leader's arms begging him for forgiveness. She was gone before the sun rose, and before making peace with Leader.

Leader lost all heart after that, blaming himself and his stubbornness for the cost of his mate's life. Not that his change in demeanor made him any more charitable towards Little One, but orders to go hunting for food came less and less often, and one morning Leader went gliding at dawn.

Too young, too hungry and too unloved to really mourn for Leader, Little One did his best to look after Elder. She alternated praising him for his meager kills, asking him who he was, and demanding to know where her long-dead mate was. Finally, one evening, Little One awoke alone. Elder had passed peacefully in her sleep, and the frustrated young gargoyle shifted restlessly, completely at a loss.

Now what?

Some stray notion told him he should first bury Elder's remains. But no such ritual had been given to Big Brother or Sister; their crumbled corpses were scattered in the underbrush with no ceremony to speak of. And there was no telling where the fragments of Leader's shattered body lay. Little One rose to his feet and wandered randomly about the abandoned and vine-overgrown shed that had served as the tiny clan's home.

He felt he should do something for her at least. Elder had always been kind to him, even when she couldn't remember who he was. At length he settled for pushing her remains into the shallow fire-pit and covering it with her tattered cloak.

And then he was back to wondering what to do.

There was no food. Game was scarcer than ever with the nearby human town creeping steadily out into the clan's wilderness. Little One had never been there, but he'd heard Leader complain about it enough. Perhaps he should go there.

At this, Little One wavered. Humans, he'd been told, were mean-spirited, violent and greedy creatures, outstripped in breeding ability only by rabbits. Avoid them and anything to do with them. There was no such thing as a friendly human.

Though he was wise enough not to say so out loud, Little One somehow doubted it.

And there was nothing to keep him here. No Leader to growl veiled threats or cuff him in the head for using it. No Elder's wings to curl up in during storms. And the shed itself could only laughably be called shelter. A few more good thunderstorms and it would flatten out of sheer self-loathing.

Little One made a token effort at looking around for things to take. There wasn't anything of practical value to a tiny young gargoyle barely able to glide. He was dawdling more than anything else. For all his unchildlike blunt logic, he was very childishly scared. He was truly alone. He'd never ventured far from the shed, let alone seen any humans. They could very well be the monsters Leader had described.

_If I stay here, I will die. And for what?_ he thought, suddenly indignant. _To prove Leader right, that I'm scrawny and useless? He's wrong. About me, and about humans._

_I know it._

--------

A few hours before dawn, Little One wandered into town. It was eerily quiet, and he had to remind himself that it was because humans slept at night. That would make it a little harder to find a friendly one, but at least he was here now. Finding something to eat was a little higher on his list anyway.

Or it was, until he started really looking around.

It was everywhere— scrawlings, lines of shapes, on signs, street corner posts, banners on buildings, even on the trash on the sidewalk. It seized his attention. This was important, something seemed to tell him.

Little One pinned down a windblown piece of paper with his tail and picked it up, staring at the symbols thoughtfully. After a moment of incomprehension, he slowly turned it around. Something nipped at the edges of his mind.

_GRAND OPENING Come to the newest nightclub, Door In The Wall_

Little One frowned. It was writing. It didn't make any sense to him, but he had no doubt of what it was. Confused, he dropped the paper and looked up at the nearest building's hand-painted sign. DISMUKE'S CONSIGNMENT SHOP it declared. He peered into the front window and saw racks of hanging clothing and shelves piled with strange human devices, but nothing offered any further enlightenment. With a sigh, he turned away and continued his aimless trek further into the town.

Little One scanned each sign and bit of writing he came across, hoping something would make sense or fall into place, and getting progressively more perplexed. An ache for understanding slowly overshadowed the ache for food, and he lost all sense of time. He was staring up at a sign with a stern-looking NO PARKING AFTER 10 PM emblazoned on it when he noticed the sky behind it looked rather bright. _Maybe Leader was right about me thinking too much_, he thought, quickly reining in his panic. Tonight, he told himself, he would find something to eat instead of gawking like an idiot at all this human nonsense.

He raced off to look for a place to spend the day.

--------

A fat orange cat glared challengingly at Nolee Carroll from underneath the porch steps as she got out of her car. She glared right back, in no mood to take guff from the hairball that belonged to her next-door neighbor. Slinging her tote bag over one shoulder, she took a warning step towards the cat. It got the message, only grudgingly sauntering off... and into her open basement window.

Nolee groaned. At least she knew the cat was fixed; the last thing she wanted to deal with around here was a litter of kittens. She went inside, dumped her bag on the kitchen table, and marched down into the basement.

"Here, kitty kitty," she cooed in singsong tones. "Come to auntie Nolee before her allergies remember they exist..."

She peered over and around waist-deep cardboard box piles and shelves. Only half of this stuff was hers. The rest had been left behind by the previous tenant, but at three months Nolee figured it was hers by default. She still had yet to go though it all, let alone unpack what she'd actually brought with her. Her schedule was murder.

She went to the window at the other end of the room, standing on tiptoe to tilt it closed. How had it gotten open, anyway? It locked from the inside... ah-ha, she thought, feeling the metal latch with her fingers. It was bent, enough to let the narrow ground-level window swing inward.

"Ju-u-ust great," she murmured. Maybe she could hammer the latch back into shape, but that was a project that would have to wait. First, the cat. She turned, took a step, and nearly killed herself tripping over something on the floor.

Stumbling back, grabbing at her bruised shin, she let out a curse and looked down.

Funny. She couldn't recall there being a boulder down here.

No, not some shapeless rock. She bent down. It was the oddest piece of sculpture she had ever seen.

The small childlike figure sat knees-to-chin, hunched up with its arms crossed around its legs. A pair of small scalloped wings tented the figure, framing an almost toddler-like face. Its solemn expression was marred only by the fact that its mouth was half-smooshed against a knee.

"Whoa," she breathed, running her fingers down the curve of a shell-thin wing. It was actually kind of cute, in a weird Notre Dame kind of way. The artist had put in an incredible amount of detail— little pointed ears, a pair of nubby horns poking out through tousled hair, even the forked tail draped over its clawed toes. Too sweet-faced to be some gothic gate guardian, too pointy to be cherubic garden statuary... if the sculptor had been going for this kind of confusing charm, they'd nailed it.

Nolee wondered what to do with it. It certainly wouldn't fit the neighborhood décor, so putting it on the front porch was out. It looked a little too real... as if it would suddenly blink its eyes and look right at her—

A flash of orange fur sprang up inches from her face. She yelped and jumped back, quickly feeling foolish.

"Dumb cat!" she scolded, calming her hammering heart. The cat sat down on the statue's head, completely unconcerned by her startled reaction, and made an imperious "mrrf!" noise.

"You should know by now I'm not going to feed you," Nolee retorted. She picked up the cat and went back upstairs, not at all looking forward to the sneeze fits soon to visit. "Come on, you. Got better things to worry about than cat dander and some funky statue."

--------

In the dim shaft of street-light that streamed in through the tiny window, a small grey creature crouched on a cardboard box and wondered what to do.

Little One hoped no one had discovered him overday. At least it seemed the human or humans who lived here hadn't noticed his presence, or didn't realise what he was if they had.

He couldn't go back outside. He'd climbed up the stonelike wall to peer outside, only to see the house across the road teeming with activity. People came and went, talking and laughing loudly. Some sort of music throbbed from within the house, and at one point a black-and-white vehicle had come by; its presence seemed to calm the ruckus down, but only for a few minutes.

If he left his cellar hiding place now, he was sure to be seen. Among all those humans one or two were bound to be friendly, but Little One didn't feel comfortable trusting his fate to such a random hope. Besides, there were a couple of them in the bushes nearby who looked as if they were either fighting or mating-- it was hard to tell which-- and he felt it wise not to disturb either activity. Leader and Sister had always taken great exception to such interruptions.

Little One had his stomach to worry about at the moment anyway. He crept up the stairs and put his ear to the door. The only noises were from the goings-on across the street and after a few moments of silence from within the house, he eased the door open.

It was dark, save for a single lamp that burned near a window. Little One ventured out onto plush carpeting in a room that bespoke of a comfort he had never imagined. Colorful blankets draped a large, thickly padded chair, and along the wall was the chair's sibling, longer and strewn with fat cushions. A box-like device sat on a wooden stand, and on it were piled a pair of other devices and many small silvery discs.

He wanted to poke and examine everything, but experience kept his claws at his side. Curiosity had never gotten him anything but a swat across the backside from Leader's or Sister's tail. Even though neither were here, he didn't have time for such foolishness; the humans might return at any moment.

Little One turned his attention to the next room. Its floor was paved in smooth, shiny stone squares. A small table sat in one corner with a pair of chairs, and a long shelf ran the length of the opposite wall, with many small doors above and below it. A giant white box hummed busily at one end of the shelf.

Best of all, he smelled food.

He clambered up onto the shelf and headed straight for a large bowl of fruit, first devouring an apple, seeds, stem and all. An orange nearly thwarted him, until he remembered it had to be peeled-- Elder had once rescued such a fruit for him from the spoils of a human campsite-- but even then he managed to swallow quite a bit of chewy peel in his rush to consume it. After a distasteful mouthful of a long, curvy yellow fruit, he discovered those required peeling as well; once past the bitter skin, its meat was soft and wonderfully sweet.

Having taken the edge off his hunger, he looked around again. He wanted to take as much as he could carry. Once he got some strength back he could try his luck at hunting small game again. He couldn't see anything that looked like food, at least not in plain sight...

There was something on the table.

Little One, his arms laden with fruit and an apple in his teeth, got down from the shelf, losing an orange from his hoard in the process. He simply dumped the load in a small pile on the floor, and pausing to chew on the apple, he climbed up into a chair to get a closer look at the object on the table.

It was a book.

One of Little One's most prominent memories was of finding a book while out foraging with Big Brother and Sister. They had come across an abandoned car on the side of a dirt road. Sister greedily salvaged one cushioned seat (it had lasted only a few months until it fell apart, not designed to withstand even a small clan of gargoyles) and gave Big Brother and Little One the task of scavenging anything else that might be useful. There wasn't much, some rags, a few rusty tools, and a book, a small thick book with a picture of a swarthy human man and a swooning human woman on its cover.

Little One was kept too busy on the way back to examine the tattered and half-molded book; Big Brother would wander off if not given something to do, and Sister, her arms full of car seat, kept sending Little One after the edible plants she spotted. But it had occupied his thoughts. He dearly wanted to look at it further if he had the opportunity.

_"Human trash,"_ Leader had grunted upon seeing the book. _"Only one thing it's good for."_

And, in-between bored and amiable (for once) bits of conversation with Elder and Sister, Leader had torn the pages out one by one and fed them to the fire. Little One watched the pages brown, crisp and crumble into ash, a nameless unease driving him into the shelter of Elder's wings.

He had wanted to beg Leader to stop burning the book. Its slow demise had haunted his dreams for days after that.

Now, Little One eyed the book on the table, his purloined produce momentarily forgotten. It was big, with a hard cover emblazoned with writings and pictures of strange devices and designs. He gingerly traced a claw over the lettering, and lifted the cover.

The front door rattled and swung open.

--------

"What, are you serious?"

"Oh my god, yes," Nolee groaned into her phone, watching the trespassers walk unsteadily away. "Right there in the bushes. I hate that fraternity."

"Isn't there a dean of frats or something?" Nolee's sister, Tessly, asked. "I'm pretty sure tripping over a threesome in your front yard is grounds for disbanding."

"Calling him first thing in the morning." Nolee switched her celphone to the other ear and put her key into the deadbolt lock. "In the meantime I'm going to consider hooking up the garden hose."

"I miss all the fun."

"Yeah, yeah." Nolee pushed the door open, just in time to see one of the kitchen chairs flop over and a small shape go careening into the living room. "Hey, what the--!"

"What? What is it?" Tessly asked.

"Something got into the house!" Nolee hit the lights. "It's probably that cat again. Basement window won't shut."

"Aw, the cat loves you, big sis!"

"Call you later, Tess. Hug Gram for me." Nolee snapped her phone shut and sighed, walking around the table to right the upended chair. Then she paused.

All the fruit was on the floor. The bowl on the counter was completely empty, surrounded by bits of orange peel, a large pulpy wad of what might have been part of a banana, with the rest of the shredded peel draped over the edge of the counter. Perplexed, she knelt down to pick up the fruit on the floor. If the bowl wasn't overturned, how had it all gotten down here? And since when did cats go after bananas and oranges? She couldn't even picture something as ridiculous as a cat attempting to peel an orange.

She leaned forward to grab a half-eaten apple that had rolled onto the living room carpet. Just as she touched it, a flicker of movement caught her eye. From where she crouched, she could see right behind the couch, into the dark hollow between it and the wall.

A pair of eyes stared back at her, eyes that didn't belong to any cat. Nolee squinted, making out the shape of a little face.

"Are you angry?" asked a voice, so softly that she wasn't certain the face had spoken at all.

"What?" she asked, inching closer on hands and knees. Was it... was it a little kid? How had a kid gotten in the house? "Who are you?"

"The little one." Nolee had to strain to hear. She moved closer, and the intruder scooted further back, its eyes wide and wary.

"Hey, come on outta there," she coaxed. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

The child-shape squirmed and hesitated, moving neither away nor towards.

"C'mon. I don't bite." Nolee grabbed the gnawed-upon apple and held it up. "I'll let you have this if you come out."

A pause. "You are not angry?"

"Promise I'm not. It's okay."

Slowly, it emerged, and Nolee couldn't help but stare speechlessly as it reached its clawed hand out to take the apple. The little creature crouched at the end of the couch to finish the apple off, balancing lightly on the balls of its feet. It was a soft, faded shade of grey, mottled faintly, not the uniform hue of stone, but she instantly recognized the delicate scalloped wings, the thin forked tail. She knew that childlike face.

"You..." Nolee breathed. "You were in the basement."

"Myff," the child-thing mumbled affirmatively around a mouthful of apple, then swallowed. "I had to sleep."

"Sleep?" Nolee shifted, sitting back on her heels. "That's how you sleep?"

Another positive grunt made its way past what was left of the apple. The creature never once took its eyes off her, and Nolee had the impression that it would spring up and run like the dickens if she spoke so much as a cross word.

"Who... what are you?"

Its wings shuffled, a bit like a nervous shrug. "Gargoyle," it replied simply, as if it should have been obvious.

"Gargoyle... like those things in New York?" The news had become alternately depressing and crazy of late, with things that Nolee, too busy with a better-than-full college load and a job, considered too far removed from her life to be too concerned about. The esoteric subject of gargoyles had been relegated to a mental file, somewhere between "the tabloids finally got tired of Elvis, aliens and Bigfoot" and "I'll believe it if I see it."

Now there was one in her living room.

"Are you from New York?" she repeated.

It... no, he; there was a boyish quality to him... slowly shook his head, looking a little perplexed. "I am from... north, in the forest."

Nolee considered this, looking him over more carefully. He wore nothing but a tattered wrap about his waist, of indeterminate material and held in place with thready knots. It qualified as a garment in that it covered the appropriate region, and only just. His ribs showed, and he likely didn't know what a comb was, let alone ever used one on the tangled rat's nest that was his hair. At least he was clean; he smelled faintly of dusty gravel underneath the coating of fresh fruit juice. Nolee frowned thoughtfully. If this was a gargoyle child, then...

"Where are your parents? Other gargoyles?" she asked. "They might be looking for you."

Another wing-shrug and head-shake. "They are gone," he replied, still in a voice only just above a whisper.

"Gone?"

"Dead," he clarified simply.

Nolee blinked. "Oh." That explained the sad state he was in, and why he'd been raiding her kitchen. _Poor thing!_ she thought. _Probably doesn't know what to do all by himself. He's so small. How old is he, I wonder?_

"I'm Nolee," she said. "What's your name?"

Another perplexed look.

"Uh... what did the other gargoyles call you?"

"The little one," he told her, and though he didn't add 'duh' it was almost certainly implied in his tone.

"No name? Like... Harry or Danny, or...?"

A ghost of a smile touched the corners of his mouth. "No."

Encouragingly, Nolee returned the smile. "Okay then. Dunno what I'm going to call you, though."

He blinked, and for a moment he looked as if he were going to ask if she'd been paying attention. Nolee let out a laugh.

"Okay, okay. 'The little one' it is." She held out a hand. "Pleased to meet you."

Little One looked at her hand and wrinkled his nose briefly, then slowly reached his own apple-sticky hand to clasp hers. Nolee grinned broader at him.

"You can stay here until you figure out where you need to be."

--------


	2. A, B, C

Little One's vindication in the knowledge that Leader had been wrong was satisfying, but short-lived. After the first hours spent in Nolee Carroll's care, he made up his mind to leave that part of his life behind him and give the dead no more thought.

Besides, there were too many interesting things here to dwell on the past.

The shiny metal and glass boxes and the glittering discs in Nolee's 'living room' together formed an array that told stories on its little window, performed by images of humans and moving paintings of fantastic creatures. It was these story-discs she called deeveedees that occupied his time when Nolee finally had to retire to bed. She showed him how to push the little buttons on the 'remote' to make the stories play, and then promised him that she would wake up shortly before dawn to see him off to sleep.

"Whatever you do," she had told him, "Don't go outside. You could get lost, or the neighbors might see you. I don't know how gargoyle-friendly they'd be."

"I will not leave," he'd promised her, hungrily eyeing the bread-and-meat conglomeration she had prepared for him. He wanted to tell her how grateful he was, how wonderful it was to at last be warm and sheltered and fed. Little One found his habit of keeping his mouth shut hard to break, but finally mustered up a timid "...thank you."

Nolee smiled, her white teeth like a brilliant crescent moon against her dark skin. "You are very welcome."

As she went upstairs, Little One drank in the unfamiliar glow of kindness, and sat down in the middle of the living room floor to savor every bite of the sandwich and the rich taste of cold, fresh milk. He told himself to remember to tell Nolee how delicious it was, and though he had no idea what sort of beast a _blo-nee_ was, its meat was especially tasty.

Then he took up the remote and carefully touched the little green triangle. The window on the storytelling 'teevee' sprang to life, and Little One sat, immediately enthralled.

It was a tale about a clever and brave girl who, without meaning to, won the love of a prince and together they unmasked the girl's 'stepmother' (whatever that was, though the character in question looked a lot like Sister in one of her more petulant moods) for a greedy schemer out to steal the prince for her own offspring. That was about all he understood in the midst of all the maneuvering, human terms for ties that weren't family, and ridiculous social dancing. He wondered if all that complication was normal for the human world, and he had an uneasy feeling that it was. Inwardly he quailed; how was he to survive?

Nolee, though, was a reassurance. So far she had been direct and open to him. _You are very welcome,_ she had told him. And for the first time in his life, he did feel welcome. Though she had mentioned something, a question that, as the story concluded, made him think very seriously about his future prospects.

_Gargoyle... like those things in New York?_ That meant she had heard of gargoyles before they had met. Somewhere in this Newyork place there might be gargoyles. A clan, perhaps. Little One entertained a brief fantasy of being with younglings his own age, of having some elder brother teach him the proper way to hunt game, of storytelling at a rookery mother's knee.

Then, quite rudely, the specters of Leader and Sister rose up in his mind, sounding off every scornful rebuke. _Moonbrained hatchling. Scrawny weakling. Troublesome burden._

Little One brooded on this for quite some time after the deeveedee story had ended.

At length, he made a deal with himself. He would try to stay with Nolee as long as she would permit, and if they found out for certain where these other gargoyles were, he would try to meet them. If they turned out to be goodhearted and welcoming, he would go with his own kind. But if they were cruel to him, he would go back to Nolee and ask if he could stay with her forever. And if she would not have him, he would either try to find another friendly human or live in the woods by himself.

Never again, he promised himself, would he be the willing target of contempt and derision.

--------

Nolee blinked at her alarm clock and had to think for several moments why it had been set to go off hours before her earliest class. The sun wasn't even up yet.

_Oh. Little One._ She reached for her housecoat as she rolled out of bed, fighting back a yawn, and made her way downstairs, hoping he hadn't gotten too bored or scared and had run off. She wasn't sure he'd understood her instructions on changing DVDs out, let alone the remote.

He was sitting in the living room floor, right where she'd left him, but the TV was running an infomercial for a rotisserie. Little One had one of her school books open in front of him, and he was so intent on it that he didn't notice her coming up right behind him.

"Whatcha got there?"

As innocent a question it was, Little One sprang up as if stung, wheeling around and leaping away from the book, his wings up. "Nolee! I-- I am sorry!"

She blinked. "Sorry for what?"

He cringed, darkening with a guilty flush. "Your book. I only... I only wanted to look at it."

Nolee crouched. "Hey, that's okay. I don't mind." He looked as if he were expecting a blow. She had to wonder how his elders had treated him. "You can look at any book you want as long as I'm not using it."

His wings came down, and he sat up, eyes big and serious. "I can?" Then he deflated with a sigh, as if disappointed.

"What's wrong?" Nolee was beginning to learn that he wasn't in the habit of volunteering his thoughts; she'd have to poke a little to get him to speak up.

He flicked a claw at the book, sinking into a full-blown sulk. "I do not understand it."

She looked down at the book in question and had to bite back a giggle. "Little One, that's calculus. Nobody understands that."

Little One gazed longingly at the book, and he looked so disheartened that she moved to sit next to him, putting her hand on his bony shoulder. _Gonna have to fatten this boy up a little,_ she thought. "But I've got plenty of other books. Do you want to learn how to read?"

Nolee didn't know what prompted her to ask that, nor did she know when she'd find the time... but the look on Little One's face turned so hopeful and jubilant that she didn't care. "I'll take that as a yes," she said, "But the sun's about to come up. You turn to stone, right?"

The little gargoyle nodded, sneaking little glances at the book as if it were a forbidden fruit.

"Let's get you back down to the basement, then. Nobody'll see you if they look in a window. And I'll skip the end of my psych lecture so I can be here when you wake up."

"And you will teach me?" he asked, his voice low but full of anticipation.

"We'll start, yes."

After she watched him turn to stone (and what a fascinatingly bizarre tucking-in it was) Nolee went back upstairs and picked up her calculus book. Smiling and shaking her head, she looked at it for a moment and had to wonder. He had obviously encountered books before, or he wouldn't have known what it was. Perhaps he had some inkling of what it meant to understand what was in a book. His curiosity and desire for understanding had certainly been plain enough.

_I just signed over my free time to teach a kid gargoyle how to read,_ she mused to herself. _Wonder what I'm getting into._

Well, to borrow the Little One's notion, there was a need for understanding. So Nolee went to her computer. It was time she started paying attention to the gargoyles' press.

"I have class in four hours," she muttered as her ancient dial-up squealed its way online. "I should be getting a little more sleep."

Typing "gargoyles" at a search site netted her a near-useless mixture of junk, mostly forums and news boards about gargoyle sightings and conspiracy theories. Articles from legitimate news outfits were vague and more or less regurgitations of the little Nolee already knew. And she could purchase a faux-stone resin replica of a gargoyle from the Notre Dame cathedral for only one hundred and forty-nine dollars if she clicked here now.

She narrowed the search terms, refining it to _real gargoyles, new york_.

The top result made her stomach flip: _THE GARGOYLE MENACE._

Almost reluctantly, she opened the site.

_WE MUST ACT NOW TO SAVE HUMANITY._

_There are demons in the skies, hiding in the shadows of night that threaten our very existence. These demons are GARGOYLES. Manhattan is a city gripped with fear of these nightmare beasts. YOUR CITY COULD BE NEXT. We must keep humanity PURE._

_They come to kill and destroy all we know and love. They are the ENEMY of humanity. PROTECT yourself and your children from these soulless monsters. They know nothing but death and destruction._

_YOU ARE NOT ALONE._

_JOIN US._

_WE ARE THE QUARRYMEN._

A pain in her hands made Nolee notice that she was gripping the calculus book in her hands with a knuckle-popping force. With a deep breath, she relaxed and read the page again. The words almost boiled on the computer screen with the force of the hate they had been written in. It didn't help that it was blood-red text on a black background, and the grainy photo of a snarling purple glowing-eyed face only enhanced the effect.

The bellicose website continued to seethe in the same manner for another three screen-fuls before Nolee had finally had enough.

She could only take so much garbage before the urge to vomit would overtake her. Even if she hadn't met the shy grey gargoyle child, she knew it for what it was. Her parents hadn't raised a fool. And especially knowing Little One, it worried her that anyone would buy into that hatemongering.

Him, soulless? Little One, who acted as if he'd committed a heinous crime in daring to touch her math textbook?

She realized now how wise she was to keep him out of sight. One whisper of a gargoyle here... well, there was no telling what an internet whackjob would do these days. She would protect him by hiding him and teaching him. She'd _make_ the time to do it, too.

--------

Little One dreamed of turning the pages of a book, endlessly scanning the indecipherable scrawlings. Page after frustrating page. His dreaming mind drifted in and out of this exercise, each time turning more pages and never seeming to reach the end of the enormous tome.

Dusk finally came, and he shook free of his stone skin with a yowl. Nolee was there waiting for him, sitting on the bottom step. She stood as he shrugged off the last dust of sleep, staring at him. He squirmed uncertainly. Direct attention had hardly been a good thing heretofore... but this was Nolee.

"Goodness," she remarked with a smile. "That was something else."

It took him a moment to figure out she was talking about his awakening, a typically explosive little event. He'd never given it any thought. To a human, it might seem unusual, he supposed. He doubted that Nolee would have been similarly delighted by the sight of someone like Leader waking up, flinging bits of stone skin everywhere and roaring like a thundercloud.

"Hello, Nolee," he greeted her hopefully, remembering the previous pre-dawn's conversation.

"Hello yourself," she replied, holding out her hand. "You hungry?"

The constant answer to that question was 'yes', of course, but... "May I read, too?" he ventured boldly, taking her hand.

She laughed as they went up the stairs. "Oh, you're just too cute for words, Little One."

--------

First, she sat him down at the table with a fresh primary-lined pad and a pencil. In careful capital letters she had printed the alphabet, and instructed him to simply copy the letters while saying them aloud as he did so. After a moment of fumbling the pencil in his little claws, he peered at the double rows of letters.

"Ay," Nolee said, pointing to the first letter.

"Aaayyy," Little One repeated, and put the point of the pencil to paper, his face a mask of concentration. Presently a lopsided but firmly-drawn capital A appeared below Nolee's precise example.

"Bee." She proceeded to the next letter. And so it went, one letter after another. Nolee wondered how many repetitions he'd have to make, if he was actually learning the shapes and names of the letters and not just parroting as many children might at the start of learning to read. She only had to wonder as far as the letter O.

"Oh. Oh..." Little One murmured, digging a little circle in the pad with the now-dulled point of the pencil. "Oh... oh..." Here he paused and chewed at his lip, a fang exposed. And instead of following Nolee's finger to the next letter, he lingered on the O, tracing the shape a few more times.

Then he went back one letter. "En. Ennnnn."

Forward one. "Oh."

He looked up at Nolee, the first time his eyes had left the pad since the start of the exercise. "Ennnn-oh..." he muttered, head tilted to one side. "Nnnoh... Is this how your name starts?"

She blinked. Halfway through the alphabet and he was already starting to put phonics together? "Uh-- yes, that's exactly it."

"Which is... 'lee'?" he asked, looking back down at the letters.

"That's two letters," she said. "Well, three, but the last two are the same." She touched the pad with a finger. "See if you can figure it out. You've got the right idea, just sound the letters out..."

"Lee... eee-- E. N-O... E is the end."

"That's right. Can you find the middle letter?" _How old is he? He's too smart to look that young, but then, what do I know about how gargoyles age?_

"Lllllee," he murmured, pencil tip roving back over the written letters. "...aye... jay, kay... el. Ell." He looked up again. "L."

Nolee could only smile in amazement, and watch him go to the blank margin and print NOLEE. With a triumphant jab of a claw, he declared, "That is your name."

All she could do for a moment was shake her head in wonder.

Little One's face fell. "Is it wrong?"

"No, no, you got it exactly right," she assured him. "You just got it right so fast, is all."

Comforted, he tapped the written name. "Why are there two Es? It is 'eee' by itself."

"Not exactly. Two Es makes the eee sound. One E is... well, I'd be 'Nole' with only one E."

He frowned. "Why?"

This led to a discussion on long and short vowel sounds, I-before-E (except-after-C), those weird consonant marriages that produced 'th', 'sh', and 'ch', and it took a yawn for Nolee to notice it was two in the morning.

"Humans sleep at night," Little One remarked, sounding slightly amused.

"Guess it's a good thing I don't have any class or work tomorrow." Nolee stretched her arms above her head and yawned again. "I should get to bed. You want anything to eat before I turn in?"

"Yes." He hopped out of the chair and followed her to the fridge. "Nolee, will I read soon?"

Pouring a glass of milk, she nodded over her shoulder at the table. "You keep that up, sooner than I think. You're a very quick study."

"I hope so." Little One sounded impatient. "I want to read. I want..." He fumbled for words, his tail twitching agitatedly. He looked up at Nolee, his expression in earnest. "I need to."

"Don't worry. You will."


	3. History Lesson

Nolee couldn't keep Little One in books fast enough. After three weeks he had mastered the basics and was openly bored with anything with the name Seuss on it. The living room floor turned into an ever-changing landscape of children's library books. A paperback dictionary, purchased brand-new after the third night of reading lessons, was now quite tattered and scratched up by little grey claws. He was already making attempts at Nolee's personal collection of novels, and she prudently moved the Steven King to higher shelves.

He was a completely different creature. He had visibly gained weight since his arrival, and the tone of his skin changed; it deepened from the chalky color to a mixture of subtle cloud-grey tones, and a pattern of spots that Nolee had mistaken for sickly mottling became better defined. The wretched excuse for a breechclout had been replaced with a pair of shorts and a little t-shirt she had bought and then altered to accommodate his wings and tail. A comb had tamed the rat's nest on his head into surprisingly silky, down-soft snow-white hair.

And he no longer spoke in short half-whispered sentences. He had quickly figured out that speaking his mind was not only acceptable, but encouraged, and now Nolee could hardly get him to stop talking when his nose wasn't in a book. And she soon got a picture of what his life had been like before his arrival.

"Leader was brown. Tree-bark brown," he said, pausing to take a bite of hamburger at dinner, his breakfast. "And long black hair, like yours with curls in it, but always tangled. Sister would always complain about the knots in his hair. _Loudly_."

By now Nolee had discerned that 'sister' was more of a title than name, and wasn't actually Little One's sister. In fact, from his description of her-- grey-colored like him, with spots, and similar wings-- she was willing to bet she had been his mother. "Did they always bicker like that? What about... Elder, was it?"

"Not always. But a lot. Elder did not. Sometimes she never even noticed." He shrugged. "She was very old."

"Do you miss them?"

He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then licked his fangs. "I miss Elder... the others did not like me very much. I was a burden."

Nolee blinked. "A burden? How do you mean?"

"I think too much. And I cannot hunt well."

She muffled a snort. "What did he expect? You're... what, six years old?"

"Elder once told me she had counted ten winters since I had hatched... but she had a bad memory," Little One replied.

"Ten?" Maybe gargoyles aged differently, she supposed, bus she still could swear he wasn't a minute past five or six by the look of him. "Well, you're still too little to bring down a buck or whatever else is living in those woods."

"I could catch rabbits and fish. But that was not enough to feed us." He made a disgusted face. "And Leader was never patient enough!"

"Sounds like he was a real charmer."

"He was not," Little One insisted, as the sarcasm blew past him and Nolee had to hide her grin. "Big Brother was better company."

She didn't bother to stop her giggle this time, recalling the description of said individual. He had been either extremely dim-witted or simply mentally handicapped. An overbearing leader, a shrew, a senile but kindly elder, a halfwit and at the bottom of the pile, slowly being squashed, was the bright child. Small wonder the group had been doing so poorly. She wondered how the decline had begun.

"Well, I don't think you think too much. Just more than the average."

He nodded solemnly. "I am glad you think so. It is a relief to know I was right."

In the back of her mind, Nolee was amused at the pains he seemed to take to speak in such a proper manner. Sometimes she felt as if she were talking to a learned old man and not a small child. "Right about what?" she asked as she took her plate to the sink.

"Humans. Leader always said you were all horrible and greedy."

"I'm not going to lie; there are some people like that." She turned and leaned back against the counter, facing him. "There are even some humans who hate gargoyles."

If she expected this news to trouble him, she was disappointed. He merely gave another wing-shuffling shrug and downed the last of his burger. "I know. We frighten you."

She gave a small smile and shook her head. "You don't frighten me."

"No_lee_," he said, coming very close to rolling his eyes, "You would be frightened of Leader, or Sister. I am the _Little_ One. You could sit on me and that would be the end of it."

She threw back her head and laughed. "You have a point! But you won't be little forever."

He slid out of his chair and handed Nolee his dishes. "Then what will I be called?"

"You want a name?"

He made a noncommittal noise. "I am still little."

"Suit yourself."

They hit the books together, she in her asian history book and he with a pile, a mixture of library books and those he'd scrounged off her shelves. Nolee supposed that if anyone else could see them together, the scene would be equal parts amusing and bizarre. She and Little One studied their respective texts in intense silence, both of them occasionally making notes or reaching for reference in other volumes.

It was eleven o'clock when Nolee realized that she'd been reading the same paragraph about a Japanese shogunate three times, and in the same moment Little One looked up at her and asked: "Why did Beatrice feel she was unworthy of Don Pedro? He seemed fond of her."

_Oh, have mercy, Lord, he's reading Shakespeare,_ she thought, looking at the book he was currently holding. "Uh... it's been awhile. Which play is that in?"

"_Much Ado About Nothing_. Did the prince ask her in jest, or was she simply being graceful when she rejected him?"

Nolee blinked, then shut her book. "I think we both need a study break." _'In jest'... he must have picked that up reading Shakespeare. He sure talks that way a lot. Very carefully. It's cute and weird at the same time... and that question-- hell, that sounds like a high-school level essay question! I wonder if all gargoyle children are this bright, if given the chance..._ "C'mon, you can help me sort a couple of those boxes downstairs."

Bewildered, he followed her as she went down the basement steps. "Study... break? Did... did my question upset you?"

"Oh, no, no," she assured him with a smile over her shoulder. "You asked a pretty good question. I just think we need a break... There's nothing wrong with thinking too much, but you can do too much of it at once."

"...very well," he replied, as if she had just informed him that there were three moons in the sky.

Chuckling, she randomly picked a box and slid it out into the open floorspace and opened it. Together she and Little One sifted through its contents, consisting of some ugly brass geese figurines, a crumbling and rusted toaster, a few blankets, and a dark green threadbare jacket stitched with embroidered patches and adorned with tarnished pins. They sorted the bricabrac into piles, but lingered over the jacket.

"Ashton," Little One read the badge on the front. "Did someone named Ashton wear this?"

"Yes," Nolee said, pointing to a pin on the lapel. "See? This is U.S. Army. Whoever Ashton was, he was a soldier. Huh. Must have been the previous resident. The landlord said he was a very old man."

"A soldier... is a warrior?"

"Uh huh. I wonder how this got left behind. This looks so old. Maybe he was a war veteran."

"Elder once told me that old warriors should be honored," the little gargoyle said. "Is it so with humans?"

"Most people think so. At least I do. My Gram-- my mother's mother-- was an Army nurse." She looked at the jacket again, wondering what the row of ribbon medals signified. "Let's make another pile. Anything of Mr. Ashton's we find... if he died, maybe I can track down his kids or grandkids. This belongs to them."

Little One nodded solemnly, taking the folded garment and placing it carefully on a nearby empty shelf. "Is our study break over?"

"Does your brain ever get tired? C'mon, one more box and then to bed for me. You've got the whole night to cram your face in a book, silly." She opened the next box only to find it packed solid with books.

Little One's delight was absurdly palpable. With a smirk, Nolee poked his snowy-maned head with a finger. "We sort first," she told him. "Read after. If you crack one open I'll never get you out."

Unabashed, he grinned back. "Yes, Nolee."

It was an assortment of paperbacks in crumbling yellowed covers, old hardback novels devoid of dust jackets, and a pair of bibles, their aged leather bindings creased and cracked with use. Each one had a handwritten inscription inside the front cover, one to "my beloved Ellis Mae" and the other "Gregory James Ashton." These were placed with the jacket.

Underneath the bibles was a layer of journals, old-fashioned leather-bound journals, pages creased and dogeared with heavy use. Nolee opened the first one to a page full of bold, neat handwriting.

It was dated May 7th, 1978.

"_Rebeccah had her baby this morning. A boy. She named him James David, after me and Dave. I can't hardly wait to see him. Elly and I are taking tomorrow off to go visit. I'm a grandfather. Best day of my life. Elly's beside herself. God gave my girl a baby._"

Nolee paused. "Our Mr. Ashton's grandson is only a couple years older than me," she mused, and picked up another journal, this one dated October 19, 1986. The handwriting was a little less bold.

"_Elly left six days ago. I can write about it now. She would want me to. I miss her so much. I can't be selfish and wish her back. I'm glad she can't be in pain ever again. Rebeccah had to go back home yesterday. It was hard to see her off at the airport._"

Respectfully, Nolee closed the journal. It was too private to keep reading, whether Mr. Ashton was dead or alive. Little One had also given in to the temptation and was intent on another journal. "Little One, don't read those. They're private."

But he did not close the journal. He looked up at her, eyes wide. "Ashton knew gargoyles."

That brought her train of thought to a complete stop. "What?"

"_I can't figure out if I gone crazy or not, but I met some mighty strange folk tonight,_" Little One read aloud. "_That damn car broke down again, I had to leave it on the old road. I lost my temper and cussed that machine up one way and down the other, and I guess my carrying on caught the attention of these two... I don't know what they are, Lord only knows! They had big bat wings on their backs and were pretty cross with me._"

"Holy cow."

"What?"

"Just keep reading."

"_Near killed myself with fright, the way the brown one jumped out at me. I swear his eyes were glowing and he had teeth like a lion. 'GET OUT OF HERE, HUMAN!' was what he bellowed at me._

"_I don't know what came over me. I pointed down the road at my broke car and hollered back, 'Fine! Gladly! But you'll have to fly me outta here, cuz that car ain't going nowhere!' That's when the blue one started laughing._

"_They didn't fly me, thank God, but they did escort me out of the woods. The blue one told me that they didn't usually do that, that most humans ran or fainted and she was amused that I'd gone and demanded a ride. The blue one was definitely a she, though, and from the looks of her older than me. I tried to get names out of them both, but I only got growls and scowls from the younger brown one, and all the lady would tell me was that they were gargoyles._

"_I can't be crazy. I got home, but the car ain't here._"

"Do you think they were your family?" Nolee asked. "Elder was blue, wasn't she?"

"Yes," Little One replied, "And Leader was brown." He turned the pages. "Ashton looked for them again for three nights... and found them on the fourth."

_June 9th, 1987_

_I found them again. The winged gargoyles. It was the same blue lady and a different fellow with her, fishing by moonlight. I came up on the other side of the creek and there she was, tossing a fish to the spotted youngun on land. I said hello._

_I almost thought the fellow was going to come across the water and kill me right there, or he was going to bolt, one. Was hard to tell. But the lady nodded politely to me and asked me if I liked getting lost in the woods every night. I told her no, madam, I was looking for you. I had to see if you were real._

_"And now that you know, what will you do?" the lady asked me._

_I told her I don't know one way or other. I'm just a bored old man out to satisfy some curiosity. I'll leave you be if you want, but you seem like interesting folk to me._

_"Interesting!" the spotted fellow acted like it was the most ridiculous thing he'd heard all night._

_The lady invited me to share their fish. So I did, and she and I had a talk._

_Their kind, she tells me, don't have much to do with humans. A lot of mistrust. But she likes me, she says because I'd stood up to the brown fellow who'd done his best to scare me off. Damnfool thing to do, in hindsight. I'm not as young as I used to be._

_The lady tells me there aren't but five of them in her "clan" of gargoyles. And she has no way of knowing if there are any other clans out there. For some reason her clan's dying, and she told me the only reason she was letting me near them again was to ask me if I had any news of other gargoyles._

_The poor old gal, she was so hopeful. Broke my heart to shake my head and tell her that she was the first I'd ever laid eyes on. I promised her, if I heard anything, I'd come straight to her._

_She smiled sadly and thanked me. The two gargoyles stood up to leave, and as the lady was walking away through the trees, the spotted fellow turned to me._

_"You are very kind," he told me. "Don't tell her I said this, but I know she's lonely. Her mate is long dead and gone to dust. If you want good company, human, you can come back. It would do her good."_


	4. My Name is Grey

Little One wondered why he'd never heard anything about Ashton from his clan. From the old soldier's journals, he and Elder, whom he'd named Lady Blue, had become good friends quickly. And he was even more curious about "the spotted fellow" who apparently had died or disappeared sometime between Ashton's journals' end and Little One's hatching. Ashton had described this individual as _a dappled blue beanpole, tall and gangling, with a forked tail and curling horns like a ram's._

Nolee had mentioned her suspicion that Sister had been his mother, and he was inclined to agree. He had her grey coloring and her wings and her pattern of spots, though hers had been all dark. Little One's tail was forked, and though his horns were too short yet to have any definite shape, he was on the thin side and did have some lighter spots in places. This dappled male could have been his father.

Little One was unsure of how he felt about this. For one, Sister had hardly been an ideal mother. The few times she had been pleasant to him, it had inexplicably triggered arguments with Leader, and that would be it for her good mood. And he had never known the male, whom Ashton had dubbed Spots, but at least from the writings he had seemed civil enough, even friendly towards Ashton.

While Nolee slept, Little One sifted through the journals for any mention of the clan, sorting them by date. Ashton was a frank writer, peppering his entries with colorful colloquialisms that sent Little One to the dictionary often.

_Came to see Lady Blue last night, but she was busy with some drama with the younguns. From what I could gather, Missy _(Ashton's name for Sister) _had a roll in the hay with Spots, and Brown _(the younger Leader)_ had his tail in a knot over it._

While 'tail in a knot' was fairly clear, when Little One discerned the meaning of 'roll in the hay' he was a little irritated. Why hadn't Ashton simply said that they had mated?

_Missy leads those two boys around something shameful. She's very pretty, even I can see that. To those two she must look like Marilyn Monroe. And she knows it. I told Lady Blue I'd met plenty girls like her in my day, and she gave me one of those sad smiles._

_"She has the advantage, being the only eligible female. I've tried to tell her that behaving like this will only cause trouble, but... the young, they never listen."_

_I didn't know how to put it delicately, so I just came out and asked her what gargoyles thought about polygamy. Lady Blue hardly blinked, though, and threw up her hands._

_"She could have them both, but instead she plays them against each other! We are already dying, my friend, and she hastens it!"_

That explained the animosity between Leader and Sister well enough. He hadn't been her favorite, or even her first choice. Little One shook his head. Elder had known their clan was on the brink of extinction, and had been helpless but to watch. He wondered exactly what it was that she had seen, the symptoms of this slow death, and if Ashton, as an outside observer, had seen it as well.

The journals went on, at first nightly, then gradually slowing down to several nights a week. Ashton was as old as his friend Lady Blue, and both of them were feeling their age. As a consequence, the old soldier reluctantly cut his visits short, or waited a few nights between visits.

Some years' time later in the journals, Little One read of his own hatching.

_Brown damn near pitched me out of the shed, and would have if Spots and Lady Blue hadn't got in his way. Brown said I had no business being there tonight, and called me something I won't repeat even in print. Well, that set Lady Blue on her claws, and she nailed his wings to the wall like I'd never seen._

_"He is our friend! He is welcome here! You will respect him while I lead this clan!"_

_What a gal!_

_Missy gave a yelp before Lady Blue could tear Brown up much more. Two of the eggs were cracked. One of them broke wide open right away-- a big fat brown baby gargoyle right there. God as my witness, it was an ugly little cuss, but being a baby managed to be cute anyhow._

Little One paused. Big Brother? He and Big Brother had been the same age? He had been twice Little One's size, if not bigger, and by the time of his accident an able-enough glider, while the best Little One could manage was a sustained float on his small, more finely-formed wings.

_It took three hours for the second to come open. The little thing had to keep resting. Lady Blue told me a hatchling has to break out on its own or it will be sickly. When it finally came out, I had to wonder if the poor thing was going to make it, he was so tiny. Didn't cry at first, until Missy pinched his little tail, and even then he only fussed for a minute. Nothing but grey, this little one, even his big grey eyes._

_The third egg didn't hatch at all. Turns out it was bad... Spots told me to keep Lady Blue's attention on the two good hatchlings while he disposed of it. "Tonight's too good to ruin her good spirits with this," he said. I agreed._

The next night:

_Missy had a devil of a time trying to get the brown one to suckle, Lady Blue tells me. Says she thinks there's something wrong with him. I have to agree. He won't turn when there's a noise, and he doesn't quite look at you. He doesn't react much when you touch him, either. Just kind of pulls away. Privately I told Lady Blue that there'd been human babies that did the same thing, and that you couldn't do much but watch and hope it was just a phase. But I don't have much hope for that. He looks pretty bad, and if he won't eat he might not make another night._

(Little One snorted, thinking that Ashton needn't have worried about Big Brother's eating habits.)

_Now, the other one, the grey one, acts just like a baby ought, other than being really quiet. I'd never seen such a serious look on a baby before. Sharp, this one. Looks right at you, like he knows what's going on. Something tells me he'll do just fine._

_Gargoyles don't have names, it's the damndest thing. I know Lady Blue don't mind me calling her that. She's amused by what she calls my 'human quirks.' She's the only one, but I had to name them to keep them straight in my head. And I know they're not the fanciest names in the world... I ain't none too bright sometimes._

_I don't know what I'll call the brown baby gargoyle, but I know who the other one is. His name, to me, is Grey._

It was sometime between three and three-thirty when Nolee became aware that little hands were shaking her awake, and an excited voice was telling her, "Ashton named me! I have a name, Nolee!"

"...mmmh. Little One?"

"No! My name is Grey! I have a _name_, Nolee!"

"Wha...? Okay. Grey."

"Yes! Grey!" And then the thudding of small feet on carpet down the stairs, and laughter fading away.

A minute later, Nolee rolled over and looked at her digital clock, blinking blearily, and grinned despite herself. "Girl," she muttered to herself, "this is your own fault."

_--------_

Ashton's journals ended abruptly at a year after the hatching, with no explanation as to why. But at least Nolee knew for certain that her little charge was about nine years old. Which amazed her even more, considering how very young he looked. But then, he spoke and acted as if he were thirty-nine, for the most part (outbursts of name-discovery glee notwithstanding), and she had no frame of reference anyway.

Grey wore his new name like a kingly robe for the next few nights, immensely pleased. Nolee had to agree with Ashton; it wasn't the most creative name, but it did fit the young gargoyle well (besides the obvious). It sounded gentle without being weak, strong without being presumptuous.

She arrived home just in time to greet him in the basement as he shook free of his stone shell. Tonight, though, instead of his usual warm 'Hello, Nolee' he frowned as he dusted himself off, poking a fang thoughtfully over his lip.

"Rise and shine," she said, plucking a chip out of his hair. "Something the matter?"

"I was dreaming," Grey replied, glancing around. "Where is my journal?" Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed it from a nearby shelf. The journal, a simple spiral-bound notebook, had been his idea, a routine he adopted immediately after learning his name.

Nolee had often idly wondered if gargoyles dreamt while they slept, locked in stone during the day. One minor mystery solved. "Dreaming? What about?"

"A book," he said, pausing only to brush aside flakes of his stone skin with his tail before sitting down right where he'd roosted. "I am turning the pages of a book but I cannot read it."

"Sounds frustrating. C'mon, let's get something to eat while you write it down, hm?"

Grey shook his head, already scribbling. He had developed a curious handwriting style, with tall, upright letters crammed in tight against each other. "This one was different," he said, without halting his pen. "I've dreamed that book before. This time... this time someone took the book from me. I became upset. They began tearing the pages out, and burning them. Leader did that once, a few seasons ago."

He hesitated, distractedly scratching at a horn. "But it was not Leader in the dream. It was..." Grey stared intently at the open notebook in his lap, then shut it with a loud sigh. "Already it fades."

"I'm sorry." Nolee smoothed down his hair, for all the good it did; the snow-white mop had all the substance of goosedown and would not lie flat. "I hate it when I can't remember a dream. You okay?"

He gave one of his noncommittal shrugs and smiled up at her. "It's nothing. Let's eat. Tell me of your classes today!"

"Do you one better," she told him as they climbed the stairs into the living room. "I found an old friend of ours today."

"Who?"

"Ashton," she replied. "And he's still alive."

Nolee had the feeling only Grey's reserved personality kept him from having a tizzy right there. He turned and gaped at her, clutching his journal so tightly he poked holes with his claws. "He is? Where? We must go to him! Does he remember me?"

"Slow down, slow down." Nolee steered him over to the couch and sat down next to him. "Firstly, he's in a VA nursing home about an hour and a half's drive away. Even if we got in the car right now, it would be closed to visitors when we got there. And I didn't go see him, I called the home and they told me that he was there."

"How did you know?"

"Ashton was a soldier," she replied. "And once you're a soldier the government agrees to take care of you when you get old, and they keep records of everything. All I had to do was call the local Army office and ask if Gregory James Ashton was still around."

"We must speak to him!" Grey couldn't sit still. "We need to return his uniform and his Bibles, and his journals-- and I must thank him for my name, and ask him why he stopped visiting my clan--"

"Grey-- Grey, slow down." Nolee gently grasped his shoulders to steady him. "I have to warn you, he's eighty-five years old. For a human that's very, very old. We are going to go see him, but... he might be like Elder by now. He might not remember much, if anything."

"It will be enough to thank him, then," Grey replied with a solemn nod. "Old warriors should be honored."

And so it was, the next evening, Nolee sat in her car in the parking lot of the Veterans' Affairs hospital and nursing home two towns away, ticking off the minutes until the sun would dip below the horizon. Grey was in the back seat, curled into a stone ball, the position he'd assumed so that Nolee could carry his sleeping form out to the car in order to make the trip on time.

Skin and bones he might have been in flesh, but as a stone lump he was certainly heavier than he looked. She almost had strained something in lugging the oblivious gargoyle to the car. Once there, she strapped him in securely with two seat belts, cushioning him with blankets and draping one over him so that when he awoke he wouldn't fling bits of stone everywhere inside the car.

At length the sun vanished and there was a muffled crackling and a yowl from the bundle in the backseat. Nolee got out and opened the back door on the side of the car facing away from the building, looking around to make sure no one was nearby.

"Are we there?" Grey asked, peeking from underneath the blanket.

Nolee unfolded a raincoat. "Yup. It's showtime, kiddo."

He crawled out and donned the coat. It was Nolee's, and swallowed him whole, presenting a comical picture of drooping overlong sleeves and dragging hem. Nolee pulled the hood up over his head and he effectively vanished in its shadow. Someone would have to kneel and bend over to look to see that the child was something other than human.

"Ready? Okay, let's close it up in front... tuck your tail up. There we go." Nolee picked up the duffel bag that held Ashton's belongings and found Grey's hand through the sleeve of the raincoat, and together they entered the building. The desk clerk looked up as they came into the lobby.

"Visiting hours are up in one hour, miss," he said, tapping a clipboard on the counter. "'Fraid you'll have to make it quick."

"We won't be long." Nolee scribbled her name in the appropriate blank. "Can you tell me what room Mr. Ashton is in? Gregory Ashton?"

The clerk consulted his computer for a moment. "Third floor, room 327. Ashton, huh? He almost never gets any visitors. How do you know him?"

"I found some things that belong to him," she replied. "Bibles, books, personal stuff. I want to return them."

"Well, I would tell you not to tire him out, but he's likely to be up soon. He's a little weird. Sleeps all day, up all night." That certainly sounded like someone who'd gotten into habits more suited to consorting with gargoyles. The clerk peered at Grey, raising an eyebrow at what appeared to be a child covered in a collapsed tent.

Nolee flashed her biggest smile and flipped a dismissive wave. "My nephew," she gushed brightly. "He's in the dress-up play-pretend stage. Tonight we're Batman."

"Ah, I see," the clerk said, smiling knowingly. "I've got two girls who're doing the same thing, only it's Princess Jasmine or Mulan these days. I'll let you and the Dark Knight go on about your business, then."

"Thanks! C'mon, Batman."

"What?" Grey looked up at her, almost tipping the hood back and revealing that he was definitely no kin of hers, but she nudged him along towards the elevators, quickly planting a hand on his head so the hood would stay in place.

"Nolee," Grey asked once they were alone in the elevator, "...bat man?"

"It's a comic book character. Superhero. He goes around fighting crime." Nolee chuckled. "First thing I could think of. We're lucky you're little enough to get away with that."

Grey apparently had no response, trying to process being compared to a man who called himself a bat.

Nolee knocked on the door of room 327, at first quietly and then, getting no response, a little louder. Grey fidgeted in his shroud, fiddling at loose thread in the sleeve with his claws.

"Rhonda? That you? I don't think I'll have breakfast just yet," came a voice from within. Nolee pushed the door open, and Grey could see an old man reclining in a metal-railed bed. "I want to finish watching the news, and..."

The old man looked up and squinted through thick glasses. "You're not Rhonda."

Nolee patted Grey's shoulder before stepping into the room, and Grey fell in a step behind, suddenly nervous. He wanted to spring onto the end of the bed and speak to Ashton immediately, but Nolee had made him promise to wait until she said it was all right to reveal himself. Startling a person of advanced age would not be a wise thing to do.

"Mr. Ashton?" Nolee asked.

The old man nodded, reaching up with a wrinkled hand to straighten his spectacles. "Yes. Can I help you, miss?"

She approached the bed and held out her hand. "My name is Nolee Carroll, sir, and you don't know me, but I found some things that belong to you and I thought I'd return them in person."

"Oh goodness." Ashton smiled up at her and reached to shake her hand. "Must be some junk in that old townhouse. I do apologise, Miss Carroll, I thought my grandson had taken care of that."

Grey let out a breath, relieved that it seemed the old soldier's mind hadn't gone the way Elder's had. _Good winds are with me tonight,_ he thought.

"Well, might not be junk," Nolee said, putting the bag on a nearby chair and taking out the uniform jacket.

"Good Lord." Ashton accepted the garment, shaking his head. "This I haven't seen in years. Where did you find it?"

"In my basement," she replied, and reached in for one of the journals. "Along with these."

Ashton paused. Grey took a step forward, watching intently from underneath the hood.

"I didn't read any of the private stuff, Mr. Ashton," Nolee continued. "But some of it was pretty interesting..."

Ashton sighed, shifting slightly in his bed. "What I get for not throwing anything away. You probably think I'm a loon."

"I might," Nolee conceded with a small smile, "if I hadn't run into an old friend of yours." She motioned to Grey.

Ashton's bushy white eyebrows went up in confusion as Grey came to the side of the bed and pulled the hood back. The old man's jaw dropped open and he inhaled sharply. Then he began to laugh softly, his eyes wet.

"Oh, my God... look at you. Look at you!" Ashton reached towards the young gargoyle with a trembling hand. Grey clambered up into the chair, shrugged out of the coat, extended his own hand and very gently held the old human's wrist. Ashton returned the gesture with a surprisingly firm grasp.

"Thank you," said Grey shyly, "for my name."

"Just _look_ at you!" Ashton repeated. "Grey! The last time I saw you you couldn't walk two steps without falling over. Where are the others? Lady Blue?"

Grey closed his free hand over Ashton's, which was still grasping his wrist. "I'm sorry. They are gone. Lady Blue as well. I am the only one left."

Ashton sobered, closing his eyes for a moment. "Yes," he said, nodding. "She was old before you hatched. I'm not surprised. She... she didn't suffer?"

"She died in her sleep."

"Good. A good way to go."

Nolee, watching the exchange, had to marvel anew at the depth of Grey's character. For one so young he seemed to have a keen understanding of others, and little fear for the reality of death and old age, concepts that normally had adults tiptoeing about in the presence of children. Nolee mused that if her grandmother knew Grey, she might say he had 'an old soul'.

"I've read your journals," Grey was saying, "but the others never spoke of you. I cannot remember you. Why did you stop visiting?"

"You were about a year old," Ashton replied. "I was at home and took a notion to change a light bulb and fell off a chair." He waved a hand in disgust. "Broke my hip and dislocated my shoulder. Then while I was at the hospital I caught pneumonia and spent about three months flat on my back eighteen hours a day. When I finally was in some decent shape again I went out to the woods to see you and Lady Blue and Spots.

"It was Brown who met me, told me Lady Blue wasn't fit to be leader anymore and he was in charge now. Told me if he ever caught me in his woods again he'd kill me."

Grey's eyes flashed white, and he bared his fangs with a hiss. "Leader," he almost spat, then visibly calmed himself. "Always showing his claws."

"That must have been when Lady Blue started going," Nolee interjected, putting a hand on Grey's shoulder. "From what Grey tells me she might have had Alzheimer's or whatever gargoyles get instead of that."

"A shame," Ashton murmured. "She was a grand lady. It must have been tough." He patted Grey's hand abruptly. "But tell me about the others-- what on earth happened?"

Grey laid it out in his usual forthright manner; Big Brother's hunting accident, Sister's shooting, Leader's suicide-by-dawn, with Ashton inserting a grunt of surprise or a sad headshake here and there.

"A shame, a damn shame," the old man said, and cast a hasty glance at Nolee. "Pardon my language, Miss Carroll."

She waved dismissively. "I live across from a fraternity. Believe me, I've heard much worse."

"Ashton..." Grey hesitated, then plowed on. "My clan was dying. Elder saw it, you saw it... Do you know why?"

"Well," Ashton drawled, pausing to collect his thoughts. "I 'spect it might have been bad blood. Some of it, anyway."

"Bad blood?" Nolee asked. "You mean disease?"

"Not exactly. That small a community, closed off... inbreeding." Ashton shook his head. "From what I could tell gargoyles don't keep track of who begat who like us humans do. Pretty soon everybody's related to everybody else and there's nowhere for the blood to go but in circles."

"Inbreeding," Grey repeated, committing the word to memory. "This is what caused my clan to die?"

"It certainly didn't help. I don't think I'm too far off the mark thinking that's why your brother was like he was. I always thought Brown and Missy looked a little alike, had the same double-pronged horns," Ashton said, holding up two fingers to his forehead to illustrate. "But Missy and Spots weren't anything the same, so I think you'll be fine." Ashton smiled warmly and patted Grey's hand again. "You're his spitting image, you know."

Grey's brow knotted. "Spitting...?"

"He means you look just like him," Nolee clarified, ruffling the little gargoyle's hair. "Maybe it was the only two separate bloodlines left in the clan coming together in Grey."

"If I find other gargoyles, I'll tell them about this," Grey said, lifting his chin. "Perhaps they will not be to stubborn to learn from my clan's mistake."

"Stubbornness was one thing they had in spades," Ashton remarked. "I once told Lady Blue she might have to pack up the clan and leave if they wanted to stay out of human sight, and that was the one time she got angry with me. Never, she said."

"They were lucky those woods hadn't gotten plowed under to build a mini-mall," Nolee added.

"_I_ am alive," Grey said. "I will learn, and I will not be stubborn."

"Oh yes, you will," Ashton admonished him. "But about the right things. You've got your whole life ahead of you. I want you to be stubborn enough to live it right no matter what anyone, human or gargoyle, tells you. You hear me, son?"

Grey again reached out and grasped Ashton's wrist, feeling the surprising vigor in the old man's return grip. It was time, Grey decided, to seek out his own kind, to find what life he could beyond the shelter Nolee afforded him.

"Yes, elder. I hear you."

It was time to go to New York.

_Author's note: I hope you've enjoyed "The Shade of Grey" so far, or just been patient with my slow pace... have no fear, things are going to pick up very soon, because as we all know, you can't wave your arms around in Manhattan without hitting a gargoyle. Little Grey is going to find more than he bargained for... (insert evil author laugh here)_

_One more thing..._

_Gregory Ashton is based partly on my grandfather, a WW2 veteran and one of the most important men in my life. Even as an ailing octogenarian in the VA nursing home, he never lost his sense of humor or his strong character. Last year he passed away, and I feel fortunate to have known him as long as I did. I dedicate this chapter to him._

_Old warriors should be honored._


	5. The Shade Stirs

"Grey, get down! Someone's going to see you." Nolee reached across to the passenger seat and pushed the little gargoyle's hooded head down. He sighed peevishly but obeyed, squirming fitfully. At this point she wouldn't have been surprised to hear a petulant "are we _there_ yet?" out of him.

It had been two weeks since the visit to Ashton. Nolee had midterms she didn't dare skip out on, or else she would have planned for the trip sooner. Grey had been willing to wait for her break, but she supposed even his unchildlike patience had its limits. 'Antsy' was an inadequate term to describe Grey's behavior the past few nights.

They had tried to prepare for this odd vacation by researching, looking for any clue as to where to start looking for the New Yorker gargoyles. But it was a bit like researching UFOs: plenty of rumor, wild speculation, and very little concrete fact. Newspaper articles were the best sources, although that wasn't saying much; vague eyewitness reports and politicians being equally vague about what they intended to do about 'the gargoyle problem.'

The best lead yet was an event that had been reported in too many reputable news outfits to be a rumor. The clocktower above the 23rd police precinct had been bombed and there was hard photographic proof of the gargoyles involved. Involved _how_ was a widely debated point, but they had definitely been there.

Grey had insisted on combing through the research with her, every bit good and bad. The pictures of the gargoyles at the bombing had been a bit on the brutal side, and Nolee wondered if he perhaps shouldn't have seen them. He'd been acting jumpy ever since.

There were only a few individuals Nolee could really make out in the photos she could find online. A large purple male featured prominently in most of the shots, and there was a smattering of someone red-haired, in pictures too dark or out-of-focus to make out much more. It was after seeing these that Grey became twitchy and brooding. Once, when helping him clean up his stone skin sheddings after awakening, she had put a hand on his shoulder and he'd nearly jumped clear out of his spots.

_He has to be nervous about being with his own kind again_, she mused, watching his tail flick madly back and forth as they waited in the congested rush-hour Manhattan traffic. _Can't say I blame him, considering his only experience has been bullying and verbal abuse from just about everyone but Elder, Lady Blue. I just hope that was the exception, not the rule. I don't know what I'm going to do if these gargoyles are the same way... I can't play auntie to Grey forever, much as I care about him. I can't teach him about being a gargoyle._

She was also worried about the hate-group she'd read about, these Quarrymen. It was possible it was just one loon spewing vitriol of an especially crazy caliber on that website, but her gut was telling her the reality was likely worse. She'd have to keep an especially close eye on Grey... and an eye out for that hammer-Q symbol.

The light changed, and she took the next turn down the street to her hotel. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Grey get out one of his books and fitfully flip the pages. After a moment he shut the book and tossed it back to the floorboard under his dangling toes.

"How you holding up? Nervous?" She reached over and touched his shoulder.

"I should not be," he replied, as close to sullen as she'd ever heard from him.

"It's normal," she assured him soothingly. "Meeting your own kind, people you've never met... I'd be a little scared too."

He grunted, his expression hidden under the hood.

"But let's worry about that when we get there. We still have to find them."

--------

"Um, 'scuse me, officer?"

Morgan paused, halfway up the steps to the door of the 23rd. A young woman at the curb flashed an apologetic smile and took a step towards him.

"Can I help you, miss?"

"I don't mean to bother you, if you're in a hurry," she said, approaching a little more confidently as Morgan adopted his most relaxed-cop body language. She was a pretty girl, young enough to be his daughter, perhaps.

"I can spare a few," he told her. "Shift doesn't start for a little while. What's the problem?"

"Not a problem, I just want to ask..." She pointed up, up to the wreckage of what remained of the clocktower. "What happened up there?"

Morgan let out a dry half-chuckle. "Tourist, huh? Had a bombing awhile back. We're only just moving back in, top couple floors are still a mess. Nobody got hurt, though, thank God."

"Oh, that's good," the young woman said, sounding quite sincere. "Do you know who did it?"

"We're investigating."

"I heard a lot of stuff about gargoyles living around here," she said. "Do you think they did it?"

Morgan bit back a weary sigh. Not another gargoyle nut. No telling if she was a pro- or anti-. Neither brand had been in the policeman's favorites list recently. "Well, miss, like I said, we're investigating. Why the interest?"

She hesitated a beat too long before answering, "I'm writing a paper."

Morgan knew a hastily-concocted excuse when he heard it. "On gargoyles? You'd have better luck with Martians."

"Don't I know it," she muttered. "Uh, do you... have you ever seen any? Around here?"

"Seen any what, _chica_?" A young man butted into the conversation, a cohort at each side. "Talking about _el diablos_?"

"Hey, Luis, don't you have a kid you have to pay support on?" Morgan interposed himself between the three men and the young woman. "And a job to do that with?"

"I take care of my girl myself now, Morgan," the slim Latino blustered, a cocky grin sliding up one side of his face. "Hey, _chica_, what you want to know about gargoyles? Gotta be careful, pretty lady like you, they might like what they see..."

"Or just eat you raw," one of his buddies chimed in, and the trio chorused with laughter.

"All right now, you boys move on," Morgan ordered, thrusting an arm out towards the street. "You all got better places to be."

"They aren't devils, you creep," the young woman cut in, surprisingly defensive for someone writing a paper.

"Oh, yeah?" Luis replied, walking backwards as he and his friends moved away, but she flipped them a disgusted wave and marched off in the opposite direction.

"Thanks anyway, officer," she called over her shoulder.

"Be careful, miss," he replied, then turned and spurred Luis and his buddies on down the road with a stern look.

--------

"...how much? Oh good grief." Nolee fished more bills out of her purse and handed them to the disinterested barista on the other side of the counter. She could have guessed she'd be paying through the nose for a simple cappuccino, here in the high-priced metropolis. She'd been spoiled on college-town prices.

She accepted the pricey beverage and took a seat near the window, sipping slowly, trying to think what her next move would be. Of course the cop wouldn't just spill details of a bombing investigation to any Jane Doe on the street, and 'writing a paper'? What a dumb thing to say. The officer looked as if he would have sooner believed she was Queen of Sheba. Clearly, this was going to take a little more finesse--

"Hola."

It was him. The loudmouth buttinsky who'd called Grey and his kind devils. Nolee's lips thinned.

"Luis, was it? Please scram. I'd like to enjoy the most expensive cheap coffee I've ever had in my life in peace."

"Luis Ramirez. Listen, I wanna apologize. Just getting a laugh out of my friends." Luis sat down across the little table, grinning self-depreciatively.

"Yes, where are Larry and Curly? Shouldn't you go make sure they're not playing in traffic or something?" Nolee thought she was probably being a little too rude, but he was becoming a pain.

"O_ho_." Luis laughingly mimed being stabbed in the chest. "Makes me Moe. I deserve that."

Nolee relented, slightly. "Apology accepted. Now what do you want?"

"Nothing. What're you defending those gargoyles for? People gonna think you like 'em."

"I just have a problem with people who throw around nasty names like _el diablos_ when they don't know a damn thing," Nolee shot back, past caring about courtesy. "I've been called a nigger before. Do you like it when people call you a spic?"

He blinked, obviously taken aback by her frank use of the slurs. Nolee took advantage of it to make an appropriately indignant exit. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Ramirez, I have better places to be."

--------

"Why did I think this was going to be easy?" Nolee asked the quiet hotel room. Just wander around and look for winged statues. Sure. As if such secretive creatures would make it so simple, especially in a crowded city that possibly harbored humans who wanted to kill them. Nolee was strictly a small-town girl at heart, and after nearly a day stumbling around this buzzing metropolis she was having serious doubts about how she was going to find the gargoyles.

And that obnoxious Ramirez guy. _Diablo_ indeed!

She was tired and frustrated, and well on the way to cranky. Some sleep would make the coming night look a little clearer.

First, she checked on Grey. He was curled up in the bottom clothes drawer, hidden under a layer of Nolee's folded clothes for the week. He seemed undisturbed, and Nolee was satisfied that it had been a good place to hide a sleeping gargoyle. She was just glad he was so small; any bigger, and had housekeeping ignored the do-not-disturb sign on the door, they might have gotten a bit of a shock.

"We'll do this somehow, Grey," she told him, feeling a little better as she shut the drawer. She double-checked the chain on the door and sank into bed with a deep breath. As she shifted into a comfortable position, her hand touched something.

Grey's journal, left on the edge of the bed, open to the page he had been writing in, one line of his cramped, squirrelly script at the top.

Nolee didn't mean to pry. She wanted to respect his privacy, but she was reading it before she realized what she was reading.

_'...is angry with me. I have done something that has enraged him.'_

Nolee blinked and sat up, flipping back a page.

_'In this dream I have seen him, a gargoyle of towering height. He takes the book from me... it is not he, but the man, who laughs as he burns pages. He delights in my protests. I could read the words at last!_

_It still was impossible to understand..._

_I cannot recall what happened next. The great gargoyle dies, or it is the man, or is it that I fall? The images all tumble together. The gargoyle is angry with me. I have done something that has enraged him.'_

"Oh, Grey," Nolee murmured aloud. "He's still having those nightmares..." Pretty disturbing ones at that. The previous entry described the voice of a woman who pleaded with Grey to "_do something!_", but fear had paralyzed him in the dream.

Grey had added an odd habit to his journal-writing: little drawings and symbols crammed in margins and crowded among the entries. Here, what looked like an abstract bird. There, a batlike wing. And a row of tight, angular designs that had no meaning whatsoever to her, some of them scribbled over as if they were mistakes.

What was he trying to work out?

And what haunted his frightened sleeping mind?

--------

_"Quarrymen up to something tonight. Might be bad. Carleton Inn."_

Matt stared at the note for a few minutes. It had showed up on his desk with no signature and no explanation. The clerk at the front desk could only tell him that a bike messenger had dropped it off that afternoon. And since it mentioned Quarrymen and by association gargoyles, it fell to Matt Bluestone as head of the Gargoyles Taskforce.

He rolled the warning around in his head for a minute, trying to gauge its seriousness. He'd gotten more than his fair share of wild tips, and, considering the subjects involved, none of them were really discountable, no matter how crazy.

Finally he picked up the phone and dialed his partner. "Elisa? Yeah, sorry to bug you on your day off. Mind passing a message along to the guys?"

--------

_Crashing waves. The scent of salt water and fear. The shrieking of owls. He had to protect... protect someone..._

_The man laughed. The book burned and was consumed. The great gargoyle loomed above, seized him, demanded of him... he was tied, bound, helpless... the book burned..._

Grey shattered his sleep-shell and shook long after he was shed of the stone skin, while Nolee pulled the drawer clear. She could immediately tell something was wrong; he knew it by the look of concern on her face. Grey tried to calm himself, if only for her sake. What good would burdening her with his meaningless dreams do? She would only worry.

"Had another nightmare?" she asked.

Grey fumbled out of the drawer, using the delay to further calm his rattled nerves. "I'm fine."

"You're a lousy liar," she accused gently. "You don't have to act like such a grown-up all the time, you know. It's okay to be scared."

"I am," he admitted. "But they are only dreams."

"C'mon, let's go up on the roof for some air," she suggested. "You'll feel better. Maybe we'll even spot some new friends up in the sky."

Once up on the hotel roof, Grey was free to shed the oversized coat and take in the sight of the wide velvet expanse of the night sky. He did feel better-- better than he had in weeks, in fact. Open air and a good breeze, all a gargoyle needed. Grey stretched, spreading his wings and feeling the pleasant dull ache in those under-used muscles. He hadn't had the space or freedom to really spread out his wings, let alone take those first attempts at short glides that a young gargoyle of his age would do.

"Better?" Nolee smiled as he swept his wings back and forth a few times before folding them down his back.

"Much," he said, and it was true. He shrugged off his apprehension and looked up into the sky, still purpled in the west with the last of sunset light. It was a clear night, cloudless and moonless, stars brilliant. Peaceful, despite the constant symphony of cars and machines and voices of the city. "Dreams can't hurt me. I only wish I knew what they meant."

"They don't have to mean anything," Nolee said, leaning against the stairwell door. "I once had a dream that I was driving a car through a lake of cream cheese. If you can find some meaning in that, let me know."

Grey shook his head. "The gargoyle I see in my dreams... I wish I knew what he is so angry about. I feel it is something I have done."

"Didn't you say Leader used to blow a gasket every time you breathed funny? Maybe that's him."

Though it disturbed him, Grey called up the mental image of the gargoyle from his dreams. "No. He is taller. Purple, with great wings, and so much bigger than Leader. When he looks at me, I... he is always angry, but, I think sad, too."

"Sounds kind of like one of the gargoyles in the photos." Nolee nodded. "Maybe those pictures were a little too graphic..."

Grey wanted to tell her that his gnawing unease had nothing to do with the violence in the photographs, and that the great gargoyle in his dreams was not merely fleshed out from his imagination. There was something vaguely real about his nightmares. But he had no idea how to put that into words; it danced at the edge of comprehension as it was.

Again he shrugged it off. Only dreams.

Giving in to an urge that had seized him the moment he had emerged under the open sky, he climbed the stairwell block, leaving a trail of claw-holes in the cinderblock, much to Nolee's amazement.

"And I thank you for never doing anything like that in the house," she told him with a laugh.

"Nowhere to climb to," he replied matter-of-factly. "I cannot glide very far anyway." He perched at the edge, over the door, wings unfurled. He mentally aimed for a discolored spot on the rooftop several wingspans away, but doubted he'd get that far. Landing on his feet and not his face would be an admirable goal at this point.

Grey had just worked up the nerve to leap when a figure came up the fire escape ladder and onto the roof from the side of the hotel building. Nolee bit off a word under her breath and grabbed for the coat that was the little gargoyle's 'disguise'. "Grey, get down here, now!" she hissed at him, reaching up towards him.

The stairwell door opened, knocking Nolee backwards onto her tailbone. Another figure stood in the doorway, just like the first: dressed entirely in black, hooded, and bearing an ominous metal hammer.

"So," said the first Quarryman, "Not only are you a gargoyle sympathizer... you're _raising_ one of the monsters."

"What?" Nolee got to her feet, her eyes wide with fear. "You-- you're the-- No! Get away! He's just a child!"

"All the more reason to get rid of it now," said the one in the doorway, stepping out onto the roof and turning his faceless hood towards where Grey perched, rigid with fear. Two more Quarrymen crested the edge of the roof on either side of the building.

"Just get out of the way now and we'll let you go," said the first to Nolee, as the second operated some mechanism on his hammer, sliding the handle up and down with a metallic clacking. The head of the tool hummed and sparked with energy.

Grey was transfixed, claws digging deep into the cinderblock, while his horrified mind screamed at him to move. Instead he watched helplessly as the Quarryman raised the crackling hammer above his head.

Nolee darted up seemingly out of nowhere behind the Quarryman, reached up and grabbed the hammer's shaft. She wrenched violently downward. The Quarryman was caught off-balance and flailed a bit before tumbling backwards. Nolee tried to twist out of the way, but the charged hammer caught her shoulder on the way down and she let out a cry of pain as she too fell.

That jolted Grey out of his fear. He leapt, his wings carrying him just far enough to land right beside Nolee, between her and the fallen Quarryman.

"Nolee!" He reached for her shoulder in concern. Her jacket was scorched.

A now-familiar hum caused them both to look up. The first Quarryman was standing over them, hammer aglow and upraised. Nolee wasted no time in grabbing Grey about the waist and scrambling up to run towards one of the fire escapes, only to be stopped short by one of the other Quarrymen.

"Please," she begged, wrapping her arms protectively around Grey, "He's just a child. He'd never hurt anybody. I'm just trying to get him where he belongs!"

"Where he belongs is in my driveway as gravel," the third Quarryman replied, laughing nastily. Meanwhile Quarryman One was helping Quarryman Two back to his feet, and though Grey couldn't see their faces, he could imagine they weren't as amused.

"Hand the freak over," said Three, and reached out a gloved hand. Grey bared his fangs, growling, as Nolee backed up.

"This is your last chance," said One, he and Two coming up behind them as number Four flanked from the side. "Surrender the gargoyle and you can go free. If you continue to protect it we will consider you an enemy as well."

"You people are insane," Nolee shot back, holding Grey tighter.

He squirmed, now past fear and well into anger. "_Leave her alone!_ If you touch her I'll--"

Nolee bolted before he could finish what would have been a laughable threat. She dashed past Four, who made a grab at them but fell short. She made it to the fire escape and dropped Grey onto the landing. "Down!" she hissed. "Hurry!"

It was a bit like falling out of a tree, scrambling down the rattling metal staircase. His claws kept getting snagged in the latticework and more than once he hurtled tail-over-wing down a flight. Nolee was close behind, calling encouragement when he took a tumble. Within moments the fire escape shook with the footfalls of the four Quarrymen.

Grey reached the bottom of the stairs and hoisted himself up onto the railing. It was still a good ways to the ground, and floating straight down was something he could certainly handle, but...

"Go!" Nolee urged, joining him breathlessly at the bottom. Their pursuers were rapidly approaching.

"What about you?" he asked, indicating the drop.

"Now!" she replied, giving him a shove. He teetered and fell, his wings snapping open by reflex, and gently he coasted to the asphalt below.

Nolee tugged at the ladder that clung to the side of the fire escape. The apparatus creaked in protest but refused to budge. Grey flitted worriedly on the ground, watching the Quarrymen come within two flights... one... Nolee gave up on the ladder and lowered herself through the opening, dangling for a moment before dropping to the ground.

She crumpled as she hit feet first, letting out a cry of pain. Grey darted to her side.

"Nolee! Are you--"

"Just twisted my ankle." She got unsteadily to her feet, wincing as she stood. "C'mon. I want you to climb up that building there and run for it," she told him, pointing to the building adjacent to the hotel.

Grey shook his head furiously. "He said you were an enemy too, now. I will not leave you!"

"Bad time to be stubborn, Grey! Go!"

The fire escape ladder slid down with a dusting of rust. Nolee hobbled away, favoring her right foot, Grey clinging protectively to her coat-tails. They hadn't made it a wingspan away before the Quarrymen had surrounded them again, cornering them against the wall in the narrow alley.

"You had your chance," one of them said, "but since it is just a juvenile, I suppose I can see how some maternal instinct might kick in. You get off with a warning."

And he backhanded her across the face.

Grey screeched as she fell, fangs bared and eyes alight. All coherent thought fled his mind and he snarled and flashed his claws. The Quarrymen laughed.

_...laughed, enjoying his misery as the page burned..._

Grey flared his wings, trying to shield Nolee as they cocked their hammers one by one.

_...to kill her..._

Nolee whimpered, her face scraped and bleeding slightly where she had hit the pavement. The first Quarryman pulled his hammer back, preparing to swing.

Something within the little grey gargoyle stirred.

He _reached_.

_Grasped_.

_Thrust_.

--------

For a few eternal moments, Nolee was certain she was still dizzy from the slap.

Grey stood over her, a nimbus of white light gathering around him like a cloud. He let out a high-pitched yowl, an unimpressive noise on its own, but the glow intensified and the Quarrymen hesitated.

The light burst, erupting in a wave that lifted all four men off their feet and tossed them backwards like ragdolls. Three hit the hotel wall with audible thuds, the fourth bowling a perfect strike through a bank of trash cans.

Nolee blinked afterimage spots away, having only felt a mild vibration in the air from behind Grey. She stared, reaching out to him, hardly believing what she had just seen. Grey stood for a moment, his back still to her, then let out a small sigh and collapsed bonelessly to the ground.

"Grey!" Nolee grabbed him and gently turned him over. His eyes were shut. His coloring had turned ashen, his spots faded, and his cheeks were cold when she touched them. He breathed, but slowly. Nolee cradled him in her arms, giving him a careful shake, but got no response. "Grey… Oh, Little One, please, wake up!"

A shadow swept over them, momentarily blocking the streetlight that streamed into the alley. Nolee reflexively held Grey close, her head snapping up, fully expecting to see one of the Quarrymen looming over her.

But the giant shape descending on wide wings bore no hammer.

_Author's note:_ _Whew._

_Two things before you throttle me: One, I've got to finish the other Gargoyles fic "Renaissance Gargoyle" I have before I proceed any further or there will be timeline problems and the universe may or may not implode._

_And two: Whether you think it's brilliant or I'm full of crap, if you've figured out what's going on-- if you leave a review, PLEASE do not spoil the surprise._

_Thanks for reading!_


	6. Reawakening

_Author's Note: I know, I know, I said I was going to work on Renaissance before I continued this, but... my muse caught me going down a dark alley alone at night, and quite justifiably mugged me. Between bursting to write this particular chapter and some drama out in Real Life (that has no place here) I just had to write for the sheer therapeutic value of it._

_At any rate, the only thing out of sequence would be the brief mention of my other two OCs, and it really doesn't impact the story so far, so I'm just plowing ahead and posting this chapter._

_Fertilizer hits the ventilator, kiddies, and as I said before, if you leave a review, be kind and don't spoil. Thank you all for reading!_

--------

Grey had told her that an adult gargoyle was a fearsome sight, and she now had no doubt.

He... was... _huge_.

It was the purple male from the photos-- which hardly did him justice. He landed with an uncanny grace at the entrance of the alley and folded his massive wings around broad shoulders. Nolee reflexively huddled protectively over Grey, staring, trying to make out this newcomer's features in the dim streetlight.

He looked over the four unconscious Quarrymen lying on the asphalt where they'd been flung, then glanced at Nolee, as if trying to figure out how a such a scene had come about (something she was trying to figure out herself, at that).

"Do not be afraid," he said, in a voice that was a low rumble. "I will not harm you. What happened here? What was that light?"

"I-- I don't know, he just--" Nolee sat up, revealing the too-still Grey in her lap. "Please, you have to help him. He just collapsed."

The winged giant hesitated a beat, obviously taken aback, then closed the distance between them in two long strides. He knelt, staring down at Grey. Up close he was no less fearsome, but his craggy features gave way to an expression of surprise.

"Who is he?" he asked softly, reaching out to gently touch Grey's face with a claw that was as long as Nolee's thumb. "Where did he come from?"

She shook her head, turning her attention back to the unconscious child in her arms. "It's-- it's a long story--"

The big gargoyle nodded with a grunt. "And you are both injured. Can you get up?"

Before she could answer, a car pulled up at the curb just outside the alley and stopped. The driver's door swung open. "Look out-- " Nolee started, but the gargoyle merely glanced over his shoulder.

"It is all right. She is a friend."

The driver, a woman, looked around at the fallen Quarrymen and let out a whistle. "Geez, four of them to go after one girl?" she mused aloud. "Talk about overkill..." Then she noticed Grey. "Whoa. Is that...?"

"Yes, he's a gargoyle, we came here to find you," Nolee blurted, her head and ankle throbbing in painful chorus. "I don't know what happened, there was this light and, and he fainted--"

"Take it easy, miss," the woman said, crouching beside her. "You're both safe now. But we need to move this party to someplace a little nicer before our friends wake up."

"Agreed," said the big gargoyle, and reached again for Grey. "Give him to me. Elisa will take you to a hospital."

"No, wait." Nolee held her charge close. "Listen, I-- I go with him."

The gargoyle blinked, and for a moment Nolee wondered if all she'd done was tick him off, but she plowed on. "I'm sure you're nice people and all, but he's been mistreated before... by his own kind. If he wakes up and I'm not there he'll be terrified."

Both the woman and the gargoyle regarded her for a few moments. "What do you think, Goliath?" the woman asked.

The gargoyle stood up, towering over them as he unfurled his wings. "She shielded the youngling with her own body," he said, with a smile down at Nolee. "I believe she can be trusted."

"I'll take you both, is that okay?" the woman asked. Nolee nodded, feeling exhausted with relief. A tiny voice of caution tried to warn her that this could be some trick, but it was drowned out by the fact that she'd been within a foot of a gargoyle that could have snapped her like a twig and he'd been nothing but gentle and considerate. And the casual sense of familiarity and trust between him and the woman couldn't be faked.

Nolee limped to her feet with Grey still in her arms, the woman steadying her, while the gargoyle climbed the hotel wall. The woman checked the four Quarrymen in a cursory fashion, pulling out some handcuffs from a jacket pocket and cuffing them to the lowered fire escape ladder.

"I'm guessing one of these fine upstanding gentlemen gave you that," the woman said, pointing to Nolee's face. She had no doubt she was sporting a nice bruise in addition to the scrape she'd gotten on the way down when the Quarryman had struck her.

"Told me it was a _warning._" Nolee didn't bother keeping the disgust out of her voice. "For defending him. How could I not defend him, he's just a child!"

The woman held up a hand. "You're preaching to the choir, but at least this means I can have these wastes of skin arrested for assault. C'mon, let's get going."

--------

As Goliath neared the castle, he was unsurprised to see Rissa and Angela gliding homeward as well. With Lexington's communicators in service, news traveled with a speed that bordered on absurd. It reminded Goliath of Elisa's observations of human adolescents who apparently went about with cell phones implanted directly into their ears. The clan's communicators seemed little different.

"The night is not half over, Angela," he said with mock sternness as the two young females joined him in the courtyard. "Your patrol cannot be finished already."

"Oh, Father," Angela replied, half-laughing. "You can't expect us to just go on about our business with news like _that_."

"Are they here yet?" Rissa put in, looking mildly chagrined. "Maybe we just get a quick peek and go back out..."

Goliath relented with a flick of a claw and a smile as he caped his wings. "This is a special situation. We may become a clan of ten tonight."

_Ten. _It was a number that seemed both pitiful and proud at the same time... how long ago had it been, that they had numbered a mere six, with no expectation for the future but extinction? And then Angela, and the discovery of the other clans, the elation of no longer being the last... Rissa and Tanner, rough though their path had been. It gave him hope anew with the appearance of the youngling and his guardian; there were still gargoyles out there yet to be discovered. Ten, of course, was nothing like what the clan had been a thousand years ago. But it was definitely more heartening than a dead-end six.

"I take it the others are on their way as well?"

Angela nodded, she and Rissa following Goliath into the castle. "If not already here. Do you think he is from one of the clans we met?"

"I can't be sure yet." They came into the large common room that the clan had more or less taken over as a general living area. As Angela had said, news of the newcomer had made the rounds and the whole clan was there.

"They just got here," said Broadway, hovering at the entrance to the hallway that led deeper into the castle. "Elisa says they're hurt-- what happened?"

"Guess Bluestone's tipster wasn't yanking his chain," Brooklyn put in.

"Where is this newcomer from?" Hudson asked. Goliath held up a hand to stave off the oncoming torrent of curiosity.

"The gargoyle is a very young one," he started. "His guardian is a young human woman, but beyond that, we will have to wait for their story until they have recovered from the attack. When he awakens, we will introduce ourselves, but slowly. The young woman warned me that the youngling had been mistreated and may be frightened of us."

"Mistreated?" Hudson sat up in his battered armchair. "Not by other gargoyles!"

"I'm afraid so, if the girl's telling the truth." Goliath moved across the room. "If the Quarrymen are on the prowl tonight, perhaps it's best if we stayed close to the castle for now." After losing such seemingly helpless prey, no doubt they would be in a foul mood. "I am going to see to our guests now; I'll let you know when they are ready to meet everyone."

"Lex can go first," Brooklyn said cheerily. "He's the least threatening of us all."

Lexington, perched on the headrest of Hudson's chair with his back to Brooklyn, merely flipped his tail in what was quite likely a rude gesture.

--------

_His smile was cruel as the page burned._

_She struggled valiantly, radiant and fierce in her defiance._

_Regret. Pain. Loneliness. Walking on soil that pulsed with a power all its own._

_Three women--_

"...and there he was, hiding behind the couch. I had to bribe him with food to get him to come out."

Her voice cut through the darkness. It was a voice the small grey creature knew, and he clung to it, clawing back to consciousness through what felt like a terrible weight.

"Grey!" He felt warmth, hands closing around his. "Can you hear me?"

Though he felt he'd have an easier time overturning a mountain, he forced his eyes to open.

"Oh, thank God." Nolee smiled down at him, smoothing back his hair. "You gave me a good scare."

He frowned, blinking. For a moment, he almost expected to see... someone else. He looked around, not really seeing. He heard Nolee asking if he was all right and had no idea how to answer her.

"Where-- where are we?" he finally managed to ask, clumsily clambering into a sitting position beside Nolee on a couch that bore telltale signs of claw-marks.

"You are in Castle Wyvern," said a deep voice nearby. "Welcome, Grey."

Grey whirled to see who had spoken-- and froze.

_"What sorcery is this!"_

"Do not be afraid," the great gargoyle told him. "You are safe here."

Grey twitched, realized he was trembling, and fought to compose himself, to little avail. Nolee nudged him. "Say hello, Grey."

_"Sorcery indeed. And now you shall join them!"_

"H-he-hello..." he stammered distractedly; he felt very strange.

"I am called Goliath," the great gargoyle said, coming closer.

Goliath lunged, seizing him-- 

Grey flinched violently, shutting his eyes tightly and turning away. Goliath hadn't come at him with eyes ablaze, hadn't roared in anger-- indeed, he simply paused, perplexed, as perplexed as Grey himself was.

The little gargoyle felt Nolee's arm around him. "It's okay, he's not going to hurt you."

"Your guardian is right, little one." Goliath's voice was level, reassuring. "You are among friends."

_Guardian._

_A boy. A man in armor._

Grey shook his head. Out-of-place images from his dreams seemed to overlap what his waking eyes saw. Faces he knew but had never seen danced just out of view. Nolee looked on him with concern, and the sight of her face, the scrape cleaned up but still quite raw, seemed to shunt the visions aside.

"You're hurt," he said, and frowned. "That man struck you because of me."

Another person stepped up beside Goliath, a human woman with long black hair. "This wasn't your fault, Grey. And they got as good as they gave, apparently."

"Indeed," Goliath continued. "How did you overcome the Quarrymen? All I could see was a great flash of light."

Nolee shook her head. "This sounds crazy, but I think Grey did that."

"I--" Grey twitched again, trying to recall that moment. Light, yes, and something beneath it, like a building storm. "What did-- what did I do?"

"It was like you said, a big light," Nolee said to Goliath. "Like this wave, coming from him. Knocked them back like they were nothing. And that's when he passed out."

"What have you done?" 

Grey shuddered. "I-- I did not mean to... but how did I do this?"

Goliath stood back and gave him a long, speculative look. "I suspect you may have a talent for magic."

_Magic._

_The book._

_Words. Power._

Grey wrapped his wings around himself, as if they could shield him from the alien sensations that prowled about his mind.

"Magic?" Nolee repeated. "You can't be serious."

"I know, it sounds absurd," the other woman replied with a half-laugh. "But it's true. I've seen some unbelievable things since I met Goliath. In fact it was magic that kind of brought the gargoyles here."

Grey sat up. "How?"

"It was... a very long time ago," Goliath told him, a shadow falling across the great gargoyle's face.

"Could I but wield a sword--" 

"My clan was cursed to sleep," Goliath was saying, "for a thousand years--"

_"The gargoyles… You're a dead man, Hakon."_

"--until the spell was broken when the castle rose above the clouds. Were it not for--"

"Reverse the spell! BRING THEM BACK!" 

_"… what've ye done?"_

_"Princess…"_

_"Dormiatis dum castellum super nubes ascendat!"_

The dam of memories burst.

He Awoke.

--------

Grey suddenly went so noticeably tense that Goliath stopped mid-sentence. Nolee, her arm still around him, could feel he'd stopped trembling, but was now staring wide-eyed at the blank air before him.

"Grey?" she prompted. What on earth could be the matter with him now? This didn't seem to have any bearing on the trauma of being bullied and neglected by his former clan. When at last he spoke, it was in a breathless whisper.

"What... happened?"

Nolee leaned a little closer. "You kind of spaced out for a minute." She looked up at Det. Maza. "This isn't normal for him. Maybe he got a concussion?"

"How did this happen?" Grey asked, seeming not to have heard her at all. He looked down at his hands, then up at the older gargoyle. "Goliath... Goliath, forgive me."

"Forgive you?" Goliath, horned brows drawn together in confusion, knelt, and still had to look down at Grey. "You have not wronged me."

The little gargoyle shook his head furiously. "But I did! Oh, how can this be?" He stood up on the couch next to Nolee, wrapping his wings around himself.

"Grey, what are you talking about?" She remembered that look, though she hadn't seen it on him in some time; the look of someone who expected retribution to rain down on him, of a frightened child bracing for a blow. But at the same time...

...those deep grey eyes looked deeper than any child's.

"_I was mad with grief_," Grey went on, growing more agitated. "I never imagined the castle would ever rise above the clouds. What I did was as good as murder!"

If it was possible, Goliath looked as spooked as Nolee felt.

"I believed the princess dead by Hakon's hand-- and, fool that I was, took my anger out on you! I don't know how I came to be as I am--" Grey unfurled his wings (nearly slapping Nolee in the face with one) and thumped his palm on his chest. "--but I am he who cursed you!"

Dead silence.

Goliath finally spoke.

"_Magus?_"


	7. Were It Not For You

If one were to ever ask Elisa Maza what she considered the strangest thing that she had ever witnessed since meeting the gargoyles, she would be hard-pressed to choose exactly what. Tonight, though, definitely made the list of candidates.

"How can this be?" Goliath asked of the little grey gargoyle.

Elisa would have also been hard-pressed to say whom in that room was more astounded, least of all poor Nolee Carroll, who was staring at her young charge as if he'd grown another head.

"Have I been... reborn?" Grey replied wonderingly. "Did I indeed perish in the battle with the Sisters?" He gave a little start. "Kathrine! Tom-- the eggs-- are they--"

"Alive and well," Goliath quickly assured him. "We were victorious... and you defeated the Weird Sisters; don't you remember?"

"Okay, _just a damn minute!_" Nolee, her eyes screwed shut and fingers pressed to her temples, cut sharply into the bizarre reunion. "Someone better explain what is going on here, and-- and what any of this has to do with my Grey!"

Grey looked at her as if only just remembering she was there, and visibly cringed. "Oh... Nolee, please don't be angry."

"Nobody's angry," Elisa stepped in, and Nolee shot her a look that plainly told her to speak for herself. "Just a little confused. This _does_ sound a little crazy."

"If you doubt me," Grey said, looking directly at Elisa, "Ask me what we spoke of when you and I walked to the Hollow Hill."

The detective shook her head. "Just by knowing about that I'd say you were the real thing. But I think your guardian needs to know the full story."

Grey nodded, taking a breath and turning to the indignant, baffled young woman. "After all you have done for me, dear friend," he said, "you deserve the truth.

"Goliath spoke of the curse that made his clan sleep. I am the sorcerer who cursed them. I _was_ that sorcerer... a man, human like you. I have all this while been unaware. The dreams that worried me were memories, haunting me for the sin I committed a thousand years ago.

"Please, Nolee, don't be angry with me, or with Goliath... If I had known who I was I never would have deceived you."

Nolee was silent for several moments, her annoyance melting slowly into concern, bafflement into mere bemusement. "But you're talking about reincarnation."

"It's been known to happen," Elisa put in dryly. "But Grey knows things only the Magus would know."

"But what does this _mean_? What happens to him now?"

"It means," Goliath rumbled, "that you have a decision to make, Magus."

Grey got down off the couch, and with an apologetic glance to Nolee, turned and looked up at Goliath. "Will you walk with me?"

The leader nodded, and followed Grey out into the corridor. Once the two gargoyles were out of sight, Nolee pinned Elisa with a look.

"Seriously, detective-- does this kind of thing happen a lot around here?"

"Make yourself comfortable," Elisa cautioned, taking a seat. "And you might want to take notes."

--------

No matter how hard he tried, Grey could not keep the telling nervous fidget out of his tail. He somehow couldn't remember it being this hard to maintain one's composure.

"It is true, then, what you said?" he asked the towering giant who walked beside him. "That we won, and the eggs are safe?"

"Can you not remember?" Goliath said.

"I remember fighting the witches, and fleeing into the Hill, but I see nothing after that moment."

"Then you do not remember your... your own death."

Grey felt a shudder work its way up his spine, and he squelched it before it could translate into a rustling of his wings. "Using Avalon's power cost me dearly," he said, absently pushing his hair back out of his face. "I cannot remember dying. But it must be true. How else could I be here... now? And as this?" He cast another glance down at himself, though the sight was at once startling and familiar. A rogue thought bubbled to the surface: _is this reward or punishment?_ and he had to stop a snort from betraying him.

Goliath peered thoughtfully down at him. "My experience taught me that when you leave Avalon, you are sent where you need to be."

"I died; I did not leave."

"Death is a departure of sorts. That may not even be the reason, but it seems the likeliest to me. But whatever the case may be, you have returned to us, Magus, and no matter how it came about..."

"... I must decide what to do with this new life," Grey finished. He straightened, stood as tall as his awkward child's body would let him. "If you allow it, Goliath, I would join your clan and make amends for what I did."

The big gargoyle raised a brow. "Do not let guilt motivate you, for you have none as far as I am concerned."

Grey blinked.

"If you don't remember your death, you don't remember our last conversation. Let me repeat it, so there can be no misunderstanding." Goliath knelt. "_I owe you a great debt, Magus. You saved my children._ You have been given a marvelous gift, a second lifetime, to live in any way you choose. Go into it as innocent as the child you are."

--------

It amazed Nolee to see just how... different... the gargoyles looked.

She supposed she shouldn't have been so surprised, given the only representative she'd had was Grey, but still. The widely varying colors, sizes and shapes... she remembered the talk with Ashton and thought to herself, _this must be what a genetically diverse group looks like._

Elisa introduced her to them one by one. Apparently they knew what had happened and had been waiting to meet the newcomer, and were warm and welcoming to Nolee herself. The comely lavender female, Angela, even surprised her with a hug and the portly elder Hudson commended her for her bravery in defense of one of their own.

Nolee didn't feel particularly brave; in fact, looking back on the night's beginning made her slightly sick at how close she'd come to getting herself seriously hurt or worse. And Grey...

She didn't know _what_ to think about that.

Nolee did her best to answer the gargoyles' eager questions as she thought back. It explained the dreams, the odd scribblings in his journal, and of course how he'd managed to learn to read so fast. He'd always seemed a little unchildlike. But just who was he now? Grey, _Little One_, the bookworm orphan, or this Magus, a guilt-haunted old ghost whom she knew practically nothing about?

And on that note, she had to worry about just how serious a crime that curse business really was. Both Grey and Goliath had acted dead serious as they'd left for their private conference, the youngling looking as if he were preparing to plead for his life.

"This clan of Grey's," Hudson was saying, bringing her out of her thoughts. "All of them gone, you say?"

"His brother died in a hunting accident," Nolee replied. "And his mother was shot when she accidentally scared some human hunters... and Grey says that Leader 'greeted his last dawn' and committed suicide somehow."

By the collective gasp this elicited she could surmise it probably meant something particularly dramatic, and her imagination filled in the rest.

"Lady Blue, the one they just called Elder, just didn't wake up one night," she continued. "She was very old, though. And Grey's father, Spots..." she trailed off. "There seems to be a gap in the history there. Mr. Ashton told us he thought maybe there'd been a fight when Leader took over, since he and Grey's father were always butting heads."

"If that were so," Brooklyn mused, scratching thoughtfully at a horn, "Spots obviously lost, but was he killed in the fight or got kicked out."

"That's so harsh!" Angela protested, and the brick-red gargoyle shrugged helplessly.

"That's the way we used to do it, back in Scotland," he said. "If you challenged the leadership you were in for a fight. This clan sounds strictly traditional-- no names, no acknowledging parents."

"So, could he still be alive? Grey's dad, I mean," said the green female, who was almost incongruously dressed in jean shorts and a t-shirt, as opposed to the apparent loincloth dress-code of the rest of the clan.

"Those woods are almost totally closed in by human development," Nolee replied, shrugging. "And it was almost a decade ago, so there's no telling."

"We can worry about that later," Hudson cut in, rising from his armchair. "Here comes the lad now."

Goliath and Grey appeared in the archway just as Nolee turned. Immediately she could tell their discussion had gone well-- Grey's posture was still a bit apprehensive but he was smiling now. The beast-like gargoyle had to be restrained by Broadway lest he bowl the much tinier newcomer over with inquisitive approval. All the gargoyles waited expectantly, as Goliath gave the child an encouraging nod.

"Angela?" Grey said, taking a step into the chamber, his smile growing broader. "I... I am glad to see you again."

Angela's enthusiastic expression fizzled into one of puzzlement. "Again?"

Grey nodded, shifted in place. "And-- and I am glad to see the rest of you alive and well. I had feared you all dead, long ago."

Nolee fought to keep her jaw from dropping open. _He wouldn't._

Before anyone could muster up the obvious 'what are you talking about' question (or even a 'hey, kid, are you okay?'), Grey plowed on. "I know I seem mad to you as I am, but... you once knew me as Princess Kathrine's advisor... the Magus who cursed you."

_He would._

Utter confusion reigned.

Angela demanded to know if this was some sort of joke, why the memory of her old teacher was being treated with such disrespect-- Bronx got away from the dumfounded Broadway and began sniffing Grey with great curiosity-- Hudson bluntly asked Goliath where by the dragon the boy had gotten such a wild notion-- Lexington was the one to bring up the valid point that crazier things had and did happen with alarming regularity-- Goliath, Elisa and Grey did their best to cut through the babble and assure everybody that yes, it was true-- Tanner and Rissa watched in complete bafflement--

Nolee stood outside the nucleus of commotion, hardly knowing what to think.

She slipped away, wandered off, and found herself outside on a parapet overlooking the bejeweled city far below. Her ankle still throbbed where she'd turned it, and she'd all but forgotten about the scrape on her face, but the cool night air both reminded her and soothed the injury. She wrapped her arms around herself and touched the rough scorch mark on the shoulder of her jacket.

Magic spells, vengeful curses, magical islands, wizards and gargoyles and reincarnation, the entire world had changed the minute she had coaxed the small grey creature out into her life...

It was insane.

It was real.

Now what?

After some time, there was a soft noise from behind. "Nolee?"

She turned around and there he was, alone; he still looked the same, said her name the same careful way he always had, but he could see the stranger in him now. "... do I call you Magus now?"

"Oh, Nolee." The little gargoyle came over to her, his expression so saddened that she almost melted right there. "This is as strange to me as it is to you. To think that I have hurt you is unbearable."

Nolee relented, knelt. "You didn't hurt me. I'm just-- not sure who you are."

He looked down at the stone floor. "I am someone who would have remained nameless and ignorant... I am someone whose second life would have had no meaning... I am someone who would have died a second time forgotten and alone... were it not for you."

Nolee couldn't help it; she burst into tears. All the stress of the night, the enormous revelation of her charge, the care and worry and love of a makeshift mother, it all washed over her in one great wave of release. Had it really only been a few months since she had stumbled over a tiny sleeping gargoyle in her basement? Only months?

"I am still your Grey," he said, embracing her. His little wings wrapped around as far as they could reach. Nolee returned the hug fiercely, managing a laugh.

"I knew I was going to have to give you up," she said, sniffing. "I was just afraid I'd _lost_ you too."

He pulled back, smiled at her, and gave her injured cheek a kiss.

"Never."

--------

_Goliath has accepted me into his clan, a fate I dared not hope for. I still cannot remember my last moments. Indeed, there are many things I cannot recall, but the memories I do have are crystal clear now._

_I read this journal anew and I am amazed at myself. I was ever driven by the need for knowledge in my old life, and that insatiable hunger followed me here; without it I am certain I would have perished._

_But it is Nolee who fed my hunger, mind and body, who led my soul to waking. The gargoyles have called her Guardian, and I can think of no more fitting title for one who gave of herself for my sake, no matter who or what I am, even through tribulation. I will honor her for as long as I draw breath._

_Of my place here, I am still uncertain. But if what Goliath said is true, that I was sent where I was needed, what is the role I am to play? What steps will this strange dance demand of me?_

_I will remember the lesson of Elder: to care for one's clan, kith and kin; the lesson of Ashton: to have the strength to live well; and the lesson of Nolee... to love without condition._

_And the lesson of my old self: to keep one's temper._

_-fin-_


End file.
